Archive for the ‘danny rosenbaum’ tag

All our full-season squads have been announced, and its time to start looking at the pitching staffs.

I never got to doing my massive reviews of the rotations of the various farm system teams this past off-season (job change, less free time at home, they being a ton of work, etc). Which also led to my not doing any predictions on where our pitchers would start the 2015 season. Which is a bummer, because it is always fun to see if my predictions were decent and to see how player movement has affected the squads. Lets go team by team and (focusing on the rotations) look at how things have changed since the end of last season.

Discussion: We’ve certainly talked this through. Quickly; Fister‘s 2014 spring training injury opened the door for both Roark and Jordan to duke it out for the 2014 5th starter job, eventually won by Roark, who gave the team a 5-win season as the 5th starter. That wasn’t enough for the Nats though; committing $210M on Scherzer for the next decade or so, pushing Roark to mop-up guy/insurance starter for opening of 2015.

Manager Matt Williams also shook up the 2015 rotation order, installing the starters by accomplishment, not by reputation. Thus 3-year running opening day starter Strasburg is dropped to the #3 hole, and last year’s #2 Gonzalez is now basically the #5 starter.

Enough about the MLB discussion though; lets get to the minor league rotations.

All four full season minor league squads are announced here by Nats Journal. In some cases we know who the rotation will be, in other cases the below is a huge guess. Especially at Hagerstown (as we’ll see).

A late spring training injury to Casey Janssen has called presumed AAA starter Blake Treinen into action in the Nats bullpen, perhaps for the long run. Which has opened up a couple of spots in the Syracuse rotation … and they’ve been surprisingly filled. Instead of installing who I presumed to be the 5th AAA starter (trade acquisition Felipe Rivero), the team has announced that 2014 MLFA signing/rubber-armed swingman Scott McGregor and 2015 MLFA Bruce Billings will fill out the rotation.

Changes from 2014? Rosenbaum traded for catcher depth, Tatusko to Korea, Poveda remains an unsigned MLFA, and Laffey signed a new MLFA deal with Colorado.

One has to think that McGregor/Billings are temporary holds in the rotation until Treinen returns. The conversion of Rivero to the bullpen is more interesting; the team is rather short on lefty starters in the system right now (thanks to a slew of upper-end draft pick lefty starters failing in the past few years … ahem Solis, Purke, Mooneyham, Turnbull). As we’ll see later on, there’s nobody really that makes sense to supplant any of these guys as a starter from AA or XST.

Harrisburg went through an awful lot of starters last year. 19 guys got starts, 15 of which were not just one-offs. From last year’s opening day, Schwartz got demoted after putting up a 7+ ERA and then hurt, Gilliam got hurt, and Purke had Tommy John surgery. By the end of the season, only Rivero remained in the rotation, though he spent a good spell on the D/L as well. Dupra got 12 starts and 24 appearances and was medicore (5.60 ERA), Poveda had great ratios (39Ks in 32innings) but an ugly era (5.34), and MLFA Kroenke was abhorrent (6.72 ERA).

Returning for 2015 are Austin Voth, the 2013 draft pick who shot up two levels last year, and last year’s MLFA Paolo Espino, who has re-upped with the team for 2015. They are joined by newly acquired Joe Ross, MLFA Tim Alderson and the surprising Matt Swynenberg (who was closer to retirement than a rotation gig this time last year). I have 2015 MLFA Richard Bleier as a swingman/spot starter for now. This rotation may be augmented by some of the Missing/XST arms (see later discussion).

Lots of turnover in the Potomac rotation as well; 14 guys got starts from last year. Dakota Bacus, Brian Rauh, and Matthew Spann are reprising their roles as starters from the end of last season, while two others (Dickson and Sylvestre) remain in XST limbo for now. What happened to the rest of these guys? Brett Mooneyham and Nick Lee posted ERAs of 7.36 and 10.05 respectively and were both demoted. Encarnacion was nearly as bad and was outright released by the organization earlier this past off-season.

Luckily, we kind of already know that the opening day rotation is going to change: we know where two of the organization’s brightest arms are heading. Giolito and Lopez should supplant Bacus and Rauh, making for a rather formidable Potomac rotation.

Well; Hagerstown’s rotation should be … interesting. When you look at the assigned arms, there’s only three clear-cut starters from last year. So clearly either the Hagerstown team will be getting reinforcements from the XST list or there’s guys being converted from 2014 relievers to 2015 starters.

Pivetta and Giolito were the mainstays from last year; both will be in high-A at some point soon. Ott was flipped as a throw-in with the Steven Souza deal. Its hard to pass judgement on this rotation until we talk about those in XST.

The title of my previous post was pretty simple: “Nats 2014 Draft == failure.” And it resulted in a rather spirited debate in the comments about the 2014 draft, the 2008 draft in hindsight, etc.

In that debate, I postulated my benchmarks for judging whether or not a team’s draft was “good” or not. Here were the six guidelines I stated for judgement, going round by round/section by section in the draft:

a. 1st rounder: future MLB above average regular to all-star

b. 2nd rounder: future MLB regular

c. 3rd-5th: expect at least one future MLB player in at least a backup/bullpen role

d. 6th-10th: hope for at least one player to reach the MLB level.

e. 11th-20th: hope for at least three players who matriculate to AA or higher

f. 20th and above: hope for one-two players to matriculate to AA or higher

Lets go back through all 10 Nats drafts and see whether these guidelines hold up. For each of the 6 requirements, we’ll give a quick “yes/no the condition was met” for each year. Critical to this analysis is the Nats DraftTracker XLS, milb.com and baseball-reference.com for searching for old players. Also useful is the Baseball America executive database, which populated the staff in charge of each draft.

Editors Note post-posting: I’ve added in the total known bonus amounts, per suggestion in the comments. Data taken from the Draft Tracker. Actual figures are likely higher because most bonus figures past the 10th round are unknown (but likely minimal). Also per good suggestion, I’m adding in the draft position for context, since its far easier to get a future all-star if picking in the top 5 versus later on.

d. Yes: 6th rounder Marco Estrada has turned into a decent starter (albeit for someone else after we released him)

e. Yes: 11th rounder John Lannan and 12th rounder Craig Stammen turned into MLBers, far above expectations here. 18th rounder Tim Pahuta had long ML career for us, playing 3 years at AA.

f. Yes: 33rd rounder Ryan Butcher was a 6yr MLFA who left the org but now has MLB experience with Atlanta. No other 20th+ round draftees made it out of A-ball, but Butcher’s MLB matriculation makes up for it.

2005: Success, inarguably. 6 guys matriculating to the majors is a winning draft, especially considering the lack of a 2nd or 3rd round pick, the ownership confusion, and the budget restrictions put on the team.

a. No: 1st rounder Chris Marrero looks like a 4-a guy at best and 1st rounder Colten Willems never made it above A-ball.

b. No: the team failed to sign 2nd rounder Sean Black and 2nd rounder Stephen Englund never made it out of low-A.

c. No: none of their 3rd-5th picks made the majors. The highest one of these guys got was 5th rounder Corey VanAllen, who did pitch in AAA after passing through the rule-5 draft and finished out his 6-years with the org. VanAllen is in Indy ball in 2014.

d. No: they didn’t even sign their 7th, 9th or 10th round picks. The closest they got to a MLBer here was 6th rounder Zech Zinicola, who played at AAA for quite a while, was rule-5 picked and returned, and now sits in Baltimore’s AA team.

e. Yes: 12th rounder Cole Kimball made it the majors briefly, while 17th rounder Erik Arnesen, 18th rounder Adam Carr and 13th rounder Hassan Pena all toiled in AAA for several years.

f. Yes, sort of. We’re all well aware of the success of 41st rounder Brad Peacock, but he was picked under the “draft-and-follow” system that no longer exists. So while yes it was a 41st round pick, in our current system Peacock wouldn’t have been picked at all and/or wouldn’t have signed but would have been picked the subsequent year based on his great first-college juco season. Of the rest of the 20th+ round picks, one guy had a couple months in AA (26th rounder Brett Logan) to serve as a backup catcher; he hit .102/.170/.122 in 20 games in 2007 and was released.

2006: Failure: 3 guys who have MLB appearances but near zero impact for this team. Peacock enabled the Nats to get Gio Gonzalez but I think we see now that Peacock wasn’t the driving prospect in that deal (now that Derek Norris has made an all-star team).

For as much as went right for the team in the 2005 draft, it went wrong in 2006. Was the lack of signing their 7th, 9th and 10th round picks evident of “fiscal restraint” demanded by the other 29 owners? Clearly to me, the focus on HS drafted personnel in this draft has Bowden’s hands all over it, and almost none of them panned out in the slightest.

a. No: The team went one-for-three on its first rounders: Michael Burgess got to AA in his fourth pro season but never further, was flipped for Tom Gorzelanny. Josh Smoker‘s failure has been well documented here. But Ross Detwiler, for all the complaining about his usage and role in this space, did make the majors and looked like a good 4th starter (in 2012). I still believe he could start in this league and is better than a long-man. However, the condition is that a first round pick turns into a successful regular, and this crop failed in all regards.

b. Yes. 2nd rounder Jordan Zimmermann is now a 2-time all-star and is probably the best 2nd round pick the organization has ever had. His successes make up for their other 2nd rounder Jake Smolinksi who has made his MLB debut but not until he became a 6-yr MLFA.

c. Yes. 4th rounder Derek Norris made the 2014 all-star team for Oakland. 3rd rounder Stephen Souza has debuted in the majors and looks quite promising (albeit blocked) for our AAA team. 5th rounder Brad Meyers toiled for us in AAA for years before being released this spring after a long injury recovery.

d. Yes: 10th round pick Patrick McCoy made it to AAA for us, signed with Detroit as a MLFA and debuted this year. We should note for the record though that 6th rounder Jack McGeary was paid as if he was a low-1st rounder and failed pretty spectacularly here.

e. Yes: 20th rounder Jeff Mandel was a long-serving org arm at AA and AAA. 11th rounder Bill Rhinehart was looking like a find, appearning on Nats system prospect lists for a while and getting to AAA before getting flipped for Jonny Gomes.

f. Yes: 28th rounder Boomer Whiting made it to Syracuse before getting released in 2011. 48th rounder (!) Kyle Gunderson was flipped for Logan Kensing in 2009 and made it to Miami/Florida’s AAA squad before getting released.

2007: Success: despite the 1st round failures and the McGeary disaster, the breadth of success in the other categories and the production of the remaining guys weighs out.

a. No: as is well documented, the Nats failed to sign 1st round pick Aaron Crow.

b. No/Inc: 2nd round pick Destin Hood has already passed through Rule-5 waivers once, but has found himself in 2014 and is hitting great for Syracuse (2014’s AAA line: .308/.353/.502). It does make one wonder if he’s worth adding to the 40-man once the season is over to keep him; he’s finishing his 7th pro year and is in line for minor league free agency.

c. Yes: 3rd rounder Danny Espinosa has his critics, but he’s at least a MLB backup or possibly more. 5th rounder Adrian Nieto has stuck with the White Sox after getting plucked in the Rule-5 draft last year and hasn’t been half bad.

d. Yes: 10th rounder Tommy Milone has shown his capabilities as a MLB starter. d. 6th-10th: hope for at least one player to reach the MLB level. 6th rounder Paul Demny remains in the system (on the D/L in Harrisburg) but doesn’t seem like he’ll go much higher at this point.

e. Yes: 16th rounder Tyler Moore has put in meaningful at-bats for the Nats for a few years now. And 19th rounder Steve Lombardozzi looks to be a solid utility/backup infielder in this league for years. Lastly I wonder if the team gave up on 15th rounder J.P. Ramirez too soon; he was paid like a 2nd round pick but was released prior to his MLFA period. He may have only made it to high-A, but his last season was somewhat decent.

f. No: as far as I can tell, nobody of note came in rounds 20 or above from this draft.

2008: Failure: How would you judge this draft? We failed to sign the first rounder, which for me is a huge negative. The second rounder may or may not ever debut in the majors, which is also for me a huge negative because of the huge prevalence of 1st and 2nd rounders on MLB rosters. But we got four (5 counting Nieto) other MLBers out of the rest of the draft, including some very deep-dive picks that you rarely find (Moore and Lombardozzi, aside from Peacock, are the two lowest round picks to ever make it to the majors for this team).

a. Yes: no arguing about either first round pick here: both Stephen Strasburg and Drew Storen have pitched at all-star levels in their careers.

b. No: 2nd Rounder Jeff Kobernus may have made his MLB debut, but he’s nowhere close to being a “regular” in the majors right now and doens’t seem to be trending that way either.

c. No: 3rd round pick Trevor Holder was a gross over-draft (albeit with known reasons; the team committed an *awful* lot of money to the first two guys on this list) and was released in 2013. 4th rounder A.J. Morris looked quite promising for us, was flipped in the Gorzelanny deal, and this year is pitching effectively for Pittsburgh’s AAA squad after being taken in the minor league Rule-5 portion last off-season. And the Nats failed to sign their 5th rounder. So even if Morris pans out as a MLB-capable player, he’s doing it for someone else.

d. Yes: 9th round pick Taylor Jordan was effective for the team last year and may yet figure in the team’s plans despite his mysterious D/L trip right now. And 6th round pick Michael Taylor has rocketed up the prospect lists for this team, is crushing AA pitching right now, is on the team’s 40-man roster and may very well get a look as 2015’s starting center fielder.

e. Yes: 12th rounder Nathan Karns made the org look quite intelligent when he gave spot starts in 2013 after rocketing up the farm system after finally recovering from arm issues. I wonder if the success they had with Karns was the first impetus for Rizzo to take more gambles on high-end-but-injured arms. 13th rounder Patrick Lehman has bounced around as an org arm for years. 11th rounder Juston Bloxom played a couple years in AA before getting released this year. 16th rounder Sean Nicol is splitting time between AA and AAA this year. Finally, I wanted to note something I never knew before studying this: the Nats drafted Marcus Strohman in the 18th round out of HS; this is the same Strohman who went in the first round three years later to Toronto and who is currently holding down a rotation spot for the playoff-pushing Blue Jays. Wow. He’s listed as a SS on the draft-tracker but clearly is a MLB-calibre starter.

f. Yes: 22nd rounder Danny Rosenbaum has been Syracuse’s “ace” for three seasons now. And a slew of guys drafted in the 20s stuck around for years as middle relievers (Mitchell Clegg, Matt Swynenberg, Evan Bronson, Rob Wort, and Shane McCatty). You just can’t ask for more out of your picks in rounds 20-30.

2009: Success: I’ll take a couple of misses in the 2nd and 3rd rounds given the amount of talent they picked up in the middle and late rounds. Great draft. 6 guys who have debuted in the majors with at least another one likely coming soon.

Note: from 2010 onwards, most of the judgement calls are still “in progress.” We’ll use projections and “small sample sizes” to pass judgement. It is what it is. Feel free to criticize in the comments about using projections and national pundit scouting reports to make judgements.

a. Yes: 1st rounder Bryce Harper has turned into everything the hype suggested. Fun fact; when he went on an rehab assignment in Potomac, he was the 2nd youngest guy on the roster. Remember that when you criticize the guy for not being better than he already is: if he was “playing by the rules,” he’d be jsut finishing his junior year of college.

b. No/Inc: 2nd rounder Sammy Solis has been one injury issue after another. He missed all of 2012 with Tommy John, came back slowly in 2013, but now sits on the AA D/L with another “elbow” issue. He was protected on the 40-man roster last fall, but you have to wonder what’s to come of him. He’s finishing his 5th pro season and he’s got exactly one start above A-Ball.

c. Yes/Inc: 4th rounder A.J. Cole was paid like a late first rounder, and after some struggles he’s really come onto the scene this year. He was already really young for AA and “solved” it, and is now in AAA holding his own. The other guys in this category are less impressive: both Rick Hague and Jason Martinson are repeating AA and not really hitting well enough to push for promotions. This could be a side-effect of the huge amount of money committed to Harper and Cole.

d. Yes: 9th round pick Aaron Barrett went from unknown/unrecognized prospect to the Nats 40-man roster last fall to being lights-out middle reliever in the major league pen this year. As a 9th round college senior pick. 8th rounder Matthew Grace may be next; after toiling as a mediocre starter, he became a reliever in 2013 and has been lights out in AA and AAA this year. And he’s not just a LOOGY: 56 IP in 33 appearances and he’s given up just 6 ER in that time.

e. Yes: 15th round pick David Freitas, after getting traded to Oakland for Kurt Suzuki, got traded again to Baltimore and now is in AAA. 12th round pick Robbie Ray has made his MLB debut for Detroit after going over in the Doug Fister deal. 11th rounder Neil Holland toils in the Harrisburg pen admirably.

f. Yes: 23rd rounder Colin Bates and 26th rounder Christopher Manno both are in the Harrisburg pen. 22nd rounder Cameron Selik made it to AA before hitting his ceiling and being released earlier this year. And 32nd rounder Randolph Oduber is a starting OF in Potomac with decent splits and a shot of moving up.

2010: Success: It may have been a no-brainer to take Harper, and it may have been an example of the “checkbook” winning in their picks of Cole and Ray, but you have to hand it to this team; they bought two high-end prep guys out of their college and they’re both looking like huge successes. And they got a MLB servicable reliever out of a college senior sign who they paid just $35,000 in bonus money. Great work.

a. Yes: 1st rounder Anthony Rendon was on everyone’s “all star snub” lists this year, while their other 1st rounder Alex Meyer remains one of the top pitching prospects in the game and seems likely to debut later this year. Their supp-1st rounder Brian Goodwin remains on every pundit’s prospect lists even if he seemingly has been passed on the organizational “future starting Center-fielder” depth chart. There’s no chance the team leaves him exposed in the upcoming rule-5 draft, so he’ll have at least three more years to prove he belongs.

b. n/a: forfeited for Adam LaRoche signing.

c. No/Inc: Right now our 3rd through 5th picks are looking iffy; 4th rounder Matthew Purke was paid like an upper first rounder and has been a massive disappointment. Right now he’s recovering from Tommy John and faces an uncertain future. 4th rounder Kylin Turnbull has gotten lit up in high-A this year, his second crack at the league. 5th rounder Matt Skole may be the most promising of the bunch; he crushed 27 homers in his first season of full-season ball only to miss all of 2013 because of a freak injury. Can Skole continue developing and make the majors on a full-time basis? Can Purke at this point?

d. Yes: With the call-up of 6th rounder Taylor Hill earlier this year, this category is met. Which is good because the rest of the 6th-10th rounders from this year are struggling. Two are already released/retired, one is MIA and the lone remaining active player (Brian Dupra) is struggling as a starter/swing-man in AA. But Hill is a huge win; a college senior draftee on minimal bonus rocketing through the minors and forcing his way onto the 25-man roster.

e. Yes/Inc: It is far too early to fully judge this category, but it is looking promising despite the fact that the team failed to sign SIX of its ten picks beween the 11th and 20th round. 11th rounder Caleb Ramsey is already in AA. 16th rounder Deion Williams is on the mound (not a SS as in the Draft Tracker) and is struggling in short-A. 18th rounder Nick Lee is struggling in Potomac this year but has shown a huge arm and seems like he’ll eventually convert to loogy (especially considering his undersized stature); I can see Lee making it far as a matchup lefty reliever with swing-and-miss stuff. The lone failure at this point is 12th rounder Blake Monar, sort of inexplicably released after a decent 2012 season in Short-A.

f. Yes: 30th round pick Bryan Harper earned his way to Harrisburg. 45th round college senior pick Richie Mirowski also made it to AA, where he wasn’t half bad last year, though at the moment he’s back in Potomac. And there’s three other players drafted in the 20th or higher who are active on Potomac’s roster this year and who may get moved up. Decent production out of the bottom of this draft so far.

2011: Projected Success: As discussed before, I believe the selection of Rendon was a “no-brainer” based on a unique set of circumstances that occured on draft day, but credit the management team for having the stones to pick him when other GMs didn’t. I’m sure the Mariners (especially) would like a re-do on that draft (they picked 2nd overall, got soft-tossing local product Danny Hultzen, who was sidelined last year with all sorts of shoulder issues and is no sure bet to ever make it back. They rolled the dice with Purke and so far seem to be losing, but Purke was himself a 1-1 talent at one point (remember, he had his $4M+ deal with Texas pulled thanks to MLB-stewardship at the time) and was probably worth the risk. I’d like to see Skole reach the majors in some capacity before declaring this draft a full success.

Note: from here onwards, everything is a projection and is based on scouting the stat lines. I’m going to sound negative where others sound positive and vice versa. Hey, its better than writing nothing.

a. Yes/inc: 1st rounder Lucas Giolito (so far) has shown himself to be at full speed post TJ surgery and is mostly in the top 10-15 of every professional scouting pundit’s list for best prospect in the entirety of the minors. He’s got a #1 starter ceiling, a huge frame and three plus pitches. He’s projecting to be everything you’d hope for from an upper first rounder.

b. No/inc: It is hard to squint at 2nd rounder Tony Renda at this point and project him as a future “MLB regular.” Sure he’s hitting .297 in Potomac, and sure his numbers at the plate have not varied much in his three pro seasons. Unfortunately he’s vastly undersized and he has no power in a time where pro middle infielders are expected to provide serious pop. Maybe he can forge a career like Jamey Carroll or like a Jose Altuve, but the odds are against him. I don’t mean to discount the guy because he’s 5’8″ but we all know there’s a significant bias in the industry towards undersized guys. Heck, a pitcher is considered “short” if he isn’t 6’2″ these days.

c. No/inc: So far the guys picked 3rd-5th are also struggling. 3rd rounder Brett Mooneyham‘s struggles are well documented here. 4th rounder Brandon Miller continues to show great power but has missed much of this season with a hamstring injury (he’s on rehab in the GCL as we speak). Lastly 5th rounder Spencer Keiboom suffered a blown UCL that basically cost him the whole 2013 season. He’s got great numbers in low-A this year but is two years too old for the league. Keiboom’s talents more centered on his defense than his bat, so he may still push forward as a future backup catcher. But until he does, this category falls in the “no” side.

d. Maybe/inc: The leading hope for some MLB success out of our 6th-10th round picks right now resides in one of two middle relievers: 7th round pick Robert Benincasa or 9th round pick Derek Self. You never know; one of these guys could turn into the next Aaron Barrett. 8th round SS Stephen Perez made the all-star team this year in Potomac and could feature as a future utility infielder. The team has already released its 6th round pick Hayden Jennings, and their 10th rounder (local Rockville product Craig Manual) was a college senior catcher who is backing up other catchers in the system for the time being). He may continue to hang around but unless he gets a starting gig he’s going to get replaced by someone newer.

e. Yes/inc: 17th rounder Blake Schwartz has already made it to AA, where he struggled and he now sits back in Potomac (where he was great last year, go figure). 11th rounder Brian Rauh got a spot-start in AA last year but has bounced in and out of the Potomac rotation this year. 16th rounder Ronald Pena is working his way off injury but faces a long road to move up thanks to a lack of swing-and-miss stuff. The team has already released four of its 11th-20th round picks; the remaining out-field players (12th rounder Carlos Lopez and 19th rounder Bryan Lippincott) both seem to face long odds as college senior draftees still residing in the low minors to even make it up to AA at this point. To be fair, Lopez missed most of 2013 with an unknown injury, so we’ll give him a slight pass. Lippincott sits in XST right now.

f. No/inc: 33rd rounder Mike McQuillan has hung around and currently serves as a utility guy/bench player for Potomac. A couple of relievers remain on squads: 29th rounder Leonard Hollins is hurt but is on a full-season squad, and 30th rounder Robert Orlan was with Hagerstown to start the season but is back in Auburn. The rest of the 20th round and up guys features carnage; eight college senior draftees already released to go along with 10 unsigned (mostly high schoolers) picks in the later rounds. One unsigned pick looks interesting; all-american freshman UNC player Skye Bolt may be a big-time 2015 draft pick. But otherwise, I’m predicting that we dont’ get even a AA player out of the last 20 rounds of this draft at this point.

2012: Projected Failure: Frankly, this is looking like it may be a one player draft. At this point, I don’t think you can look at *any* other player in this draft and project even a bench/fringe 25-man roster guy besides Giolito. Now ask yourself: if Giolito fulfills expectations and becomes an “ace,” a top 15-20 arm in the majors while the rest of this draft basically becomes high-A and AA filler, does that change your opinion of the draft success/failure?

a. n/a: No 2013 first rounder thanks to the supurfluous signing of Rafael Soriano. As noted at the time, the Nats missed out on players like Sean Manaea, Ryan Stanek or Ian Clarkin, all of whom were available at the time of their lost 1st rounder. Manaea in particular has flourished, rising up prospect list charts and sporting a healthy K/9 rate in high-A this year. I’d like to call this in and among itself a failure (given my reservations about paying for saves in general), but have to admit that Soriano has been pretty durn good this year.

b. No/inc: 2nd rounder Jake Johansen thus far has not lived up to advance billing in his first year in full-season ball. He’s averaging just 4.5 innings per outing and sports a 5.00 ERA and less than a K/inning. I can understand the difficult adjustment to pro ball, but I don’t get how his vaunted velocity and size combination aren’t resulting in more swing-and-miss. He’s given no indication that he can avoid what scouts have been saying all along (that he’s destined for the bullpen), he’s way too wild and way too hittable.

c. Yes/inc: the Nats collection of 3rd rounder Drew Ward, 4th rounder Nick Pivetta and now especially 5th rounder Austin Voth are making this management team look very smart. All Voth has done since forcing his promotion to High-A is give up 10 hits and ONE earned run in 33 innings over five starts. That’s just ridiculous. And he’s doing it while maintaining a 36/5 K/BB ratio. There’s zero reason for him to still be in Potomac at this point. I don’t know what Voth’s ceiling is, but its getting pushed.

d. No/inc: Thanks to the new CBA’s rules, most 6th-10th rounders are throw-away/college senior picks these days. So it’ll be awfully hard to depend on one of them turning into a 25-man roster guy. The best bet out of this draft will be having either 6th rounder Cody Gunter or 7th rounder James Yezzo eventually matriculating to the majors. The other guys in this category were 15k bonus college seniors, one of whom (9th rounder Jake Joyce has *already* been released). Do we think either Gunter or Yezzo projects as a major leaguer? Not right now: Gunter’s struggling in short-A for the 2nd year in a row and Yezzo is an undersized 1B showing little power.

e. Maybe/inc: Right now the pickings for the guys taken 11th-20th look pretty slim too. Three were senior signs who have already been released and we failed to sign our 16th round pick Willie Allen (though can’t fault the Nats for that: doing research on him for last year’s draft review showed all sorts of inconsistencies with him, including whether he’s even still playing baseball in college). But 11th rounder John Simms is looking like a great find; he’s already in the AA rotation and holding his own (though you could argue it was out of need, not performance). Among those left, 10th rounder Brandon Middleton and 15th rounder Isaac Ballou are starting and playing well in Hagerstown, 12th rounder Andrew Cooper is strugging in low-A, 13th rounder John Costa has yet to debut for the team thanks to TJ surgery, and 17th rounder Geoffrey Perrott was a senior catcher who got a grand total of 13 at-bats in 2013 and has remained in XST so far thisyear, perhaps to serve as a bullpen catcher for others remaining in Viera and perhaps because he was hurt most of last year and may still be recovering. If Simms continues to rise and we get a couple more longer-lasting prospects out of this crew, we’ll convert this to a success.

f. Maybe/Inc: The Nats picked seven college seniors in the 21st round or above and so far they’re all with Hagerstown. Middle infielders Cody Dent (22nd rounder) and Willie Medina (31st rounder) both hit in the .220s last year, are hitting in the .220s (or worse) this year, and seem like they may not last the season. However the pitchers in this bunch are looking better and better. 28th rounder Joey Webb has a 2.53 ERA, 30th rounder Ryan Ullmann has as 3.10 ERA and got a high-A up-and-back call-up, and 34th rounder Jake Walsh dominated Low-A and earned a call-up to Potomac. Only 29th rounder Michael Sylvestri seems to be in trouble among these senior signs; after struggling in Short-A last year, he gave up a ton of runs in 6 mid-relief outings and is currently in re-assignment purgatory. What of the non senior-signs? 24th round pick Matthew Derosier is struggling in short-A and 23rd round outfielder Garrett Gordon seems like he’s a bench player in Auburn. But a revelation may be 25th round prep draft pick Travis Ott. He holds a 2.10 ERA through 6 starts in Auburn despite being quite young for the league. So, the trend seems good that we’ll get value out of the bottom part of this draft.

2013: Projected Failure: Sorry to say; no first rounder, a middle reliever out of your 2nd rounder, perhaps a 5th starter out of the 3-5 rounds, and some org filler from the bottom of the draft? How many players from this draft do you realistically project to make the majors?

a. Maybe/inc: 1st rounder Erick Fedde may project as a MLB rotation guy, but he’s not projecting as an ace level arm. So if he comes back from surgery 100%, if he keeps moving up the chain, if he makes the majors and if he has an impact we’ll give this a yes. Lots of ifs.

b. n/a: we failed to sign our 2nd rounder Andrew Suarez.

c. Maybe/inc: The hopes here fall on 3rd rounder Jakson Reetz and 4th rounder Robbie Dickey, since our 5th rounder was a senior lefty out of non-baseball powerhouse Duke. How do we dream on Reetz and Dickey? Maybe Reetz turns into our next Derek Norris while Dickey turns into the next Austin Voth. Lets hope so, because both so far have had rather inauspicious starts in the GCL (Reetz batting .220 and Dickey posting an ERA in the 12s). To be fair Reetz is a kid and Dickey isn’t much older, so we have a long way to go before passing true judgement.

d. No/inc: We failed to sign the 8th round pick Austin Byler (and from reading the tea leaves, it didn’t seem like we were ever even close). Our 7th, 8th and 10th round picks were low-bonus college seniors with little hope of advancing. So this category falls squarely on the shoulders of 6th rounder Austin Williams, who looks ok so far in Short-A.

e. Far too Early: most of these guys who did sign are 15 games into short seasons.

f. Far too Early: most of these guys who did sign are 15 games into short seasons.

2014: Not promising: An injured first rounder, no 2nd rounder, really just a handful of non senior-signs elsewhere in the draft. As I opined in the previous post discussion, I just don’t like the looks of this class.

So. 5200 words later, I think I actually like my guidelines. I think though that the new CBA forces teams into making a bunch of “throw-away” picks in the 6th-10th rounds, so my criteria needs to be adjusted downward for that category in the last few years. Otherwise I think it holds.

What say you?

Editor’s Post-posting thoughts. Based on the analysis above, the franchise has 5 successes and 5 failures (or projected failures) in ten drafts. After up and down drafts the first four years, we had three straight successes in 2009-2011, but now I feel like we’ve had three successive failures from 2012 onwards. Here’s a sobering thought about those successes and failures: lets talk about bonus money spent.

In the 5 drafts I call successes, the team spent (chronologically): $3,990,500, $7,619,300, $18,806,000, $11,413,200 and $11,325,000 in bonus money.

Era 1 may be just the way it used to go; sometimes you’d get wins in the draft, other times you’d strike out. Era 2 was the glory years of Nats drafting, though the cynic may point out that picking three consensus 1-1 talents and spending 8 figures in bonus money wasn’t that hard. Era 3 is more troubling: why has this management team not done better in the CBA/limited bonus era?

Jose Fernandez is (arguably) the biggest name to go down to TJ surgery yet. Photo via thestar.com

Its the biggest story in baseball so far in 2014. We’ve had nearly 20 MLB pitchers get diagnosed with torn elbow ligaments so far this calendar year. All of them have or are set to undergo “Tommy John” surgery (also known as ulnar collateral ligament/UCL replacement surgery). That’s nearly as many as who got the surgery ALL of 2013 and we’re just 6 weeks into the season. There’s an alarming trend upwards over just the past few seasons of pitchers getting this surgery. There’s been plenty more minor leaguers (two Nats farmhands in Erik Davis and Danny Rosenbaum have already gotten it in 2014) and already a couple of very high-profile draft prospects as well (including as discussed in this space potential 1st rounders Jeff Hoffman and Erick Fedde just in the last week).

Lots of people are talking about this story, especially some heavy-weights in the baseball world. A sampling:

Tom Verducci (he of the “Verducci effect”) proposed a solution in a column this week after the Jose Fernandez announcement. His idea? Lowering the mound across all levels of the sport. He draws this conclusion after hosting a very interesting round-table on MLB Network.

Jayson Stark teamed up with ESPN injury analyst Stephania Bell and former player Alex Cora to discuss the rise in arm injuries in this ESPN.com video, and they follow Andrews’ theory of year-round pitching.

Chris O’Leary, king of the Inverted-W (whether you believe his theories or not, I’ve included this link here) has his own theories as discussed here. He doesn’t really have much in the way of explanation, just more whining about how every pitcher’s mechanics has something you can complain about.

So what the heck is going on?? Lets talk about some theories. I’ll highlight them in Blue.

The new “hot theory” is essentially this: Over-throwing at Showcase events, which have become crucial scouting events for kids raised in the United States, are to blame. Thanks to the rise in travel leagues and select teams, scouts spend less time sitting at high school games and more time at these all-star events. To prescribers of this theory, it isn’t so much about the amount of innings or pitches that kids throw … its the nature of the “showcase” events and the high pressure situations that those events put kids under. Kids are throwing year-round, and they’re ramping up max-effort pitches at national competitions multiple times per year, and in some cases out of “season.” This leads to serious damage to kids’ arms done as 16 and 17 yr olds, which then manifests itself over the years and results in blown ligaments in pro ball.

Do you buy this explanation? It certainly makes sense to me, but how do you prove this? And, it doesn’t explain the similar rise in elbow injuries to non-American pitchers.

Is it less about the showcase events and more about the Larger Increase in Youth pitched innings thanks to the rise in Travel Leagues? This theory also makes some sense to me: thirty years ago kids played an 18-20 game spring Little League season, at best would pitch half those games and that was it. Maybe they played in the fall too, but there were specific innings limits in place that protected kids. Now instead of playing limited spring and fall seasons, kids are playing AAU travel teams that play 40-50 games a summer, plus weekend tournaments, plus (eventually) the above showcase events as they get closer to matriculation. This theory certainly is supported by a startling rise in youth arm injuries, as noted in this 2010 study by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

But, if its “bad” to play more baseball … then shouldn’t we be seeing even MORE injuries from players who grew up in third-world baseball hot beds like the Dominican Republic or Venezuela, where by all accounts kids play baseball from sun-up to sun-down 12 months out of the year in tropical climates?

Interestingly, of the list of 19 MLB players so far who have been diagnosed with a torn UCL (see next section), there’s 4 non-American developed pitchers (Rondo, Nova, Figueora, Cisnero). 4 of 19 = 21%, whereas about 22% of MLB pitchers are non-American developed (my 22% figure comes from this quick study that I did; I grabbed every active MLB pitcher as of early May 2014 and did a quick-and-dirty player upbringing analysis to determine that about 78% of players “grew up” in the current American system of player development). It is small sample size … but the percentage of american versus foreign developed players are so far exactly in line with the total percentage of each type of player in the larger pool of MLB pitchers. This doesn’t seem to support either of the two above theories.

We’ve all heard horror stories about pitch counts and pitcher abuse at high school events in Japan (this came to light over the winter as we looked at Masahiro Tanaka and learned about these Japanese showcase events; this article here at thebiglead.com talks about one Japanese prospect’s 772 pitches thrown over 9 days, and Jeff Passan talked about Tanaka’s own pitch count abuse stories and his average pitch counts as a Japanese-league pro). Unfortunately there’s not a ton of data available about this TJ theory and Japanese pitchers. I can find a couple of instances of Asian pitchers getting the surgery (Kyuji Fujikawa in 2012 being the most recent example), but not enough to establish any trends.

But lets state it this way: you can’t have things both ways. Both these stereotypes about player upbringing cannot be true:

Latin American poor youth plays baseball from sun up to sun down 12 months a year, building arm strength constantly, therefore his arm is “stronger” and he’s less suceptible to injury

American little leaguer plays limited schedules (18 games in the spring, perhaps fewer in the fall), has closely monitored pitch counts, therefore does not abuse his arm as a youth and thus his arm is “stronger” later in life as a result.

Of these 19 pitchers, they are evenly split between being starters (10) and relievers (9). So that doesn’t seem to lend itself to any Starter vs Reliever usage conclusion.

How about Pitching Mechanics? We’ve all heard ad-naseum about the “Inverted W” and people talking about pronation and timing and elbow lift and etc etc. Here’s a quick attempt to analyize the mechanics of each of these 19 guys (all photos grabbed as thumbnails from google images for the purposes of demonstration; no copyright infringement intended).

Quick and Dirty Mechanics analysis (images in same order as list of pitchers above, which is choronological in order of diagnosis in 2014):

But I’ll immediately add a caveat to these classifications; at various stop-points in a guy’s delivery, he may exhibit “good” or “bad” trends. Maybe some of these “sideways-M” guys are actually “inverted-W” guys. Maybe some of these inverted-W guys are ok and the stills make their mechanics seem worse than they are.

Nonetheless; there’s no trend among the 19 guys in terms of their mechanics. In some cases they’re “bad” (Griffin and Gearrin’s look awful) but in some cases excellent (nobody should look at Moore’s mechanics and say they’re anything but clean, nor with Parnell or Corbin). These pitchers are overhanders, 3/4-slot guys and even side-armers/submarine guys (Gearrin and Moylan). These guys include hard throwers (Rondon had the 3rd highest velocity of *any* pitcher in 2013) and softer-throwing guys (Medlen had one of the lowest fastball velocities in the majors in 2013). There’s starters and relievers almost equally represented in this list.

Conclusion; there’s no conclusions to draw from pitching mechanics analysis. I think all attempts to look at guys’ mechanics and make judgements are useless. I think (as does Keith Law and other pundits in the field) that the “Inverted W” is nonesense and that “research” posted online by concerned-fathers-turned-self-appointed-mechanics-experts is not exactly trustworthy. The fact of the matter is this: throwing a baseball over and over is hard on the body. Throwing a ball is an unnatural motion, and throwing a ball at max-effort will eventually lead to pitching injuries, no matter what your mechanics. They can be “good” or “bad” according to someone’s pet theory on bio-mechanics and it has nothing to do about whether a pitcher is going to throw 10 seasons without injury or have two tommy johns before they’re 25.

Some historical context for pitching mechanics arguments: the pitcher who has the 2nd most innings thrown in the non-knuckleballer modern era (behind Nolan Ryan) was Don Sutton. Sutton displayed absolutely *classic* inverted-W mechanics, never hit the D/L in his career and threw nearly 5,300 innings over the course of 23 seasons. Walter Johnson‘s mechanics were awful; he slung the ball sideways as he literally pushed backwards away from the hitter at the end of his delivery. If someone saw Johnson’s mechanics today they’d talk about how over-compensated he was on his shoulder and how he lost velocity thanks to landing stiff and having zero follow through. Johnson only threw 5,900 innings in his pro career; yeah those mechanics really held him back. Nolan Ryan was a freak of nature, throwing at that velocity for as long as he did. The point? You just don’t know.

Maybe there’s something to the “showcase abuse” theory for some players. Maybe there’s something to the travel-ball overuse theory for some kids. But I think the answer may be a bit more simple. We all know there’s been a rise in the average MPH of fastballs in the majors, both on starters and especially with relievers. My theory is simply this: kids who “can” throw upper 90s spend all their time trying to throw upper 90s/max effort fastballs 100% of the time, and human arms just cannot withstand that kind of abuse over and over. In prior generations, kids who “could” throw that hard wouldn’t, or would rarely try to throw that hard, and thus suffered fewer elbow injuries.

Side note: I also firmly believe that we’re “victims of our own success” to a certain extent with respect to modern medicine; 30 years ago would someone have just “blown out their arm” instead of being diagnosed specifically with a “torn ulnar collateral ligament?” Would some kid in the low minors who hurt his harm even bother to get an MRI? How much of the rise in these injuries is simply the fact that we’re better at diagnosing injuries in the modern sports world?

Why are these kids trying to throw so hard these days? Because velocity is king, and that’s what scouts look for. A kid who “only” throws mid 80s as a 17-yr old is dismissed, while the kid who can throw mid 90s at the same age is fawned over. Guys like Greg Maddox, Mark Buehrle, and Tom Glavine probably don’t even get drafted in the modern baseball climate thanks to the over-focus on pure velocity.

You can talk about upbringing and showcase events and pitch counts and mechanics all you want, but I think it comes down to Pitcher over-exertion thanks to the rising trend of fastball velocityand the human nature urge of prospects and farm-hands to show more and more velocity so they can advance their careers.

What do you guys think? Do you dismiss the “inverted-W” arguments like I do? Do you think its all about showcase events?

We’re a month into the minor league full-seasons and the rotations are already mostly established (with D/L trips and slight movement as noted here). So lets do a little navel gazing and take a look at my predictions versus the actuals before we lose too much identity with the makeup of these four full-season pitching staffs from opening day.

As always, Luke Erickson and nationalsprospects.com, the Nats Big Board and the tireless work by “SpringfieldFan” is much appreciated here.

MLB Discussion: A late spring injury to Doug Fister obsoleted the 5th starter competition, giving both Tanner Roark and Taylor Jordan spots (for now; Roark has “won” the 5th spot thanks to a better April now that Fister is ready to come back). The biggest news during spring training was the Ross Detwiler “demotion” to the bullpen, but the Aaron Barrett victory over the likes of Christian Garcia and Ryan Mattheus was also notable. Injuries to Ross Ohlendorf and Erik Davis cleared out bullpen competition, and an early spring training chest injury to Mattheus also made it difficult for him to break camp with the big league club.

Nothing new here: we’ve talked this to death already Lets move onto the four full-season minor league squads.

Technically I got 2/5ths of the AAA rotation right to start the year: Rosenbaum and a MLFA in the form of Omar Poveda (technically an acquisition but still…). Karns was traded to obtain our (now) starting catcher Jose Lobaton. Jordan of course started the year in the majors, but I think he’ll end up back here for a good portion of the season. Young was granted his release and immediately signed in Seattle to fill one of their rotation spots. The team resigned its own MLFA in Ryan Tatusko to return and he seems set to be in the rotation for now, but he’s more of a swing-man/org arm and he likely makes way for a starter when needed. The big surprise is the unexpected promotion of Taylor Hill; he featured in AA but I thought he’d start out there. Brad Meyers stays in the organization but is “missing” for the time being: he may be headed for the D/L but as of this writing has no assignment.

In the month since opening day, we’ve seen both Mike Gonzalez and Aaron Laffey make their way to Syracuse to cover for the subsequently injured Rosenbaum and promoted MLB-bullpen-covering reliever of the day (Cedeno, Treinen, Barrett and Mattheus have all already spent time on the shuttle between Washington and Syracuse).

In the bullpen; our prediction looks decently correct; 6 of the 8 Syracuse opening day members were called. The outliers: MLFA signings Warner Madrigal and Josh Roenicke. Predicted members Erik Davis instead sits on the mlb 60-day D/L, and Alfaro is in the AA squad. Pat Lehman sits on the AA D/L for now.

AAA “Star Power” summary: So, as has become typical AAA isn’t so much about finishing off prospects as it is about holding spare parts. In the rotation we had zero 40-man roster players at this point, and really just Blake Treinen features as a potential up-and-comer (with possible future apologies to Taylor Hill of course …). The bullpen has just three 40-man roster arms (a loogy in Xavier Cedeno, and two injury reclamation projects in Christian Garcia and Ryan Mattheus). Eventually we should see some culling of this roster when the team needs to find spots for Gonzalez and Laffey in particular. Syracuse fans may not be getting the best pitching staff out there to cheer on.

We got some of the rotation correct; A.J. Cole and Blake Schwartz. We technically got Hill and Treinen correct … just under-valued where the organization would put them. And lastly Sammy Solis would be in this group had he not suffered a late-spring back injury; for the time being he’s in XST but is on the “missing” list here. I had Rob Gilliam as the AA swing man anyway; he would likely make way for Solis once he comes back. The two additional names are Matthew Purke (who surprisingly to me starts the year in AA) and newly acquired Felipe Rivero.

We got most of the bullpen right: 5 of 8 predicted. The outliers: Ryan Perry remains in the organization but sits on the D/L; personally I thought he may get released. Gabriel Alfaro was a MLFA who slots into the bullpen, as was Zach Jackson (who should have been in AAA to begin with and has already been promoted). Benincasa starts in high-A again and Gilliam is pushed into the rotation. Recent acquisition KPerez remain missing, along with several other middle relief arms. Spann started the year two levels lower than I thought he should have in Low-A but currently sits in Potomac.

A couple of long-serving names are now out of the organization; I was surprised to see Cameron Selik in particular being released; I always liked him for some reason. Its tough being a middle relief RHP with so many of them getting drafted year after year.

AA Star Power summary: A few very important names to the organization sit in AA: top pitching prospect A.J. Cole sits here and will be looking to push for a AAA promotion. Sammy Solis had rumblings of being turned into a Loogy in Spring Training; now he just needs to get healthy. Matthew Purke’s destiny remains at a cross-roads thanks to a horrible start to his 2014 AA campaign. And newly acquired/40-man member Felipe Rivero sits here, hoping to show as a decent bounty for the Nathan Karns trade. These three guys all sit on the Nats fast-depleting 40-man roster … and they represent 33% of ALL the 40-man rostered players in the Eastern League.

I thought the team would start Purke in high-A again; instead he is struggling in AA. I thought Dixon Anderson was old enough to merit the move to high-A; instead he still sits in Hagerstown repeating the level. And Kyle Turnbull remains on the low-A D/L for now. Otherwise the High-A rotation prediction looks pretty good: we hit on Mooneyham and Encarnacion, we hit on RPena and Dickson and Bacus as swingmen or starters (they all now sit in those roles in some capacity or another thanks to injuries).

The bullpen predictions are all over the place; both Wort and Holt were released, not pushed higher. Fischer remains missing. Benincasa is lower than I thought he’d be. Dupra and Rauh (who I thought were in jeopardy of getting cut) not only have kept their spots but have been pushing for promotion, which is great to see. It does go to show that its kind of difficult to do these predictions the lower you go.

High-A Star Power summary: Honestly there’s not a ton of big-time prospect names on the High-A staff. Mooneyham was a high draft pick but has more or less struggled thus far in his pro career. Encarnacion could be an up-and-comer in an organization that has struggled to develop its DSL graduate talent lately. Otherwise the Potomac staff is filled with mid- to late-round college draft arms, older for the level at this point, and likely playing for their careers this year thanks to the higher-end talent sitting in the Hagerstown rotation right now (read further).

The big three starters in Hagerstown were easily predicted (Giolito, Johansen and Voth). Lee and Anderson switched places in my predictions (both starters, wrong teams) and Orlan is stuck in XST. Pivetta was pushed to the rotation after pitching in relief last year. And then a slew of the Hagerstown arms are participating in a “dual starter” system where by the starters generally have been going 5 and the relievers/spot starters going the other 4 each night. So the team is getting lots of looks at these pitchers on an extended basis.

This system means there’s really not a “bullpen” being developed in Low-A, which is just as well; I’d rather have 8-10 starter candidates to choose from for higher levels than just 4-5 with guys already being pushed to being short-inning relievers in Low-A.

Unfortunately, we see that a slew of guys have already been cut here who appeared on last year’s rosters. And, there’s a ton more players currently sitting in XST waiting to compete with June 2014 draft picks in the short-season squads. Lots of churn here.

Low-A Star Power summary: look no further than the big three starters: they represent 1st, 2nd and 5th round draft picks. Throw in Pivetta (a 4th rounder) and the team has a ton of vested interest in this rotation.

Phew; that’s a lot of players. I can’t wait to see how the staffs work out this year. I don’t expect much in the way of commenting on this post; it was one of those drafts sitting in my admin screen that I thought i’d finish off and publish to get it out of the way

Austin Voth was great last year and has been good this year. Photo via mlbdirt

We’re a month into the minor league season and nearly five turns through each minor league system rotation, so lets take a look to see how our starters are doing.

As with the major league rotation review, I’ve assigned grade letters to roughly judge each start done by our minor league staff, and then i’ve tacked on their overall stats for context. Note that I generally give grades to those that get the starts in games, as well as those who pitch “starter length” outings. You’ll see this much more frequently in the low-A section, where Hagerstown clearly has a “two-starter” system going for many of its guys; one guy will throw 5 innings, then the next guy throws 4. So nearly the entire Hagerstown roster is getting “starter grades” right now. I should also caveat that this analysis is “scouting the box score” analysis; I’ve not had a chance to see any of these guys in person, so I can’t comment on the luck factor involved with anyone (stats versus ability) other than inference analysis between ERA and FIP.

For each team I’ll list the current rotation as best as I can make it, then have a second section where we list the guys with spot-starts or who were in the rotation but are no longer (D/L trips, promoted, demoted, etc). Then we’ll discuss, and then list those guys who are pushing for promotions and those guys who are in jeopardy of getting demoted (or, worse, released).

(Note: I wouldn’t be able to do this data tracking or this post without the great daily work by Luke Erickson at www.nationalsprospects.com.) All stats here are as of 5/2/14, which means I grabbed one May start’s worth of stats for a couple of guys here and there.

AAA/Syracuse:

Pitcher

Start Trend Line

W/L

ERA

Whip

FIP

K/BB Ratio

# of innings

Apps/Starts

Roenicke

A (3ip),F,B

0-2

5.84

1.54

4.10

7/7

12

5/3

Tatusko

A/short,B-,B+,A,B

1-3

2.36

0.83

3.87

15/7

26.2

5/5

Treinen

A-> upandback,C/short,B+

0-0

0.87

1.16

3.58

8/5

10.1

3/3

Hill

A,A+,C,A,C

3-1

2.35

0.91

3.68

29/4

30.2

5/5

Poveda

F,F,A,F

1-3

9.82

2.07

5.13

12/10

18.1

4/4

Laffey

A (took Treinen’s spot),A+,D+

2-0

1.80

0.67

1.92

14/2

15

3/1

Rosenbaum

D,A,C-,D/inc (injury)->D/L

1-1

4.50

1.35

4.18

9/5

20

4/4

Rotation Discussion:

A month in and the Syracuse Chiefs are mired in last place (though to be fair, only 3 games separate the entire division). Opening day starter Danny Rosenbaum is already on the D/L with a possible torn UCL, possibly the latest in an epidemic of Tommy John surgeries throughout baseball (there’s been at least 14 MLB pitchers to go under the knife for this already in 2014 and quite a few more minor leaguers; I have a draft post on this topic coming). His replacement in the rotation is journeyman and Ian Desmond-relative Josh Roenicke, who has struggled in his spot-start duties. However, Roenicke isn’t the least effective starter in AAA; that distinction goes to late spring training acquisition Omar Poveda, who has gotten pretty well battered so far in his four starts. One of these two guys likely is making way for recently demoted Taylor Jordan (well, assuming Jordan even makes it to AAA anytime soon; Doug Fister‘s return is complicated by the Nats needing another starter in-between; Jordan likely is sitting in AAA limbo until tuesday 5/6, then will settle into the AAA rotation).

Meanwhile, we’re seeing excellent springs so far out of Ryan Tatusko, Blake Treinen (albeit in a SSS thanks to his being bounced up and down out of the Nats bullpen), Aaron Laffey and especially Taylor Hill. Hill’s excellent 29/4 K/BB ratio stands out, as well as his sub 1.00 whip so far in 5 starts. I think its fair to say that nobody expected him to have rocketed up the system like he has, given the fact that he was a college senior draftee with limited bonus and limited leverage. I think its also worth noting Tatusko’s production in a swing-man role; quite similarly to his trade-mate Tanner Roark, he continues to produce at an advanced/MLFA age … could he be another “found gold” pitcher in our upper farm system?

We should also note that we have yet to see Brad Meyers, who remains on the D/L and has only thrown about 6 professional innings since 2011.

Bullpen Notables

The Syracuse bullpen has seen plenty of traffic to and from the majors: Aaron Barrett started in the majors and has seen time in Syracuse. Ryan Mattheus and Xavier Cedeno have already both been up and back. Nobody in the pen has much more than about 10 innings pitched, so we won’t make too many rash judgements. So far Christian Garcia looks decent; his 12/2 K/BB ratio in 10 innings is promising but he currently sits on the D/L with an unspecified injury. Meanwhile Daniel Stange has struggled with his control; he has 10 walks in 12 innings. We’ll talk more about bullpen guys deeper into the season.

Most Deserving of a promotion: Hill and perhaps Laffey, both of whom are pitching dominantly right now. But neither are 40-man guys, and that (especially for Laffey) hurts him. Laffey as a starter in AAA has been great, but he might be more useful as a lefty-match up guy. Cedeno has been getting the MLB-bullpen covering call-ups but if Laffey was on the 40-man instead, it probably would have been him instead.

Most in Jeopardy of a demotion/release: Poveda for sure; his cash-only acquisition isn’t looking promising considering that a rotation spot is needed soon for Jordan. Roenicke needs a couple of good outings to get his numbers up; with only 12 innings its hard to pass too harsh a judgement. But, with very little push from the current AA rotation, its hard to see a reason why the organization needs to make a move anytime soon (see the next section for more).

AA/Harrisburg:

Pitcher

Start Trend Line

W/L

ERA

Whip

FIP

K/BB Ratio

# of innings

Apps/Starts

Schwartz

F,F,B+,F,D+

0-4

6.08

1.99

5.1

15/10

23.2

5/5

Rivero

D-,B,B-,F,B+

1-4

5.06

1.69

4.85

13/9

21.1

5/5

Gilliam

F,B-,D,A

0-0

5.09

1.36

6.05

13/9

17.2

5/4

Purke

F,D,F,F

0-5

9.30

2.11

6.55

14/13

20.1

5/5

Cole

B-,A,D,F

2-1

3.63

1.57

2.82

16/4

22.1

5/5

Dupra

B+

1-0

0.00

0.9

4.35

3/3

3.1

1/0

Perry

F -> d/l

0-0

5.63

1.5

3.07

6/3

8

5/0

Jackson

A -> promoted

0-0

0.00

0.52

2.01

7/0

7.2

5/0

Bates

B

0-0

5.68

1.66

2.97

12.2

6/0

Rotation Discussion:

Well, there’s not much joy in Harrisburg in terms of the rotation right now. The team is already 7.5 games out of first and is in dead last in the Eastern League. Four of the five starters in Harrisburg are, well, just awful right now. I should note that the stats above do include one extra start for Matthew Purke; it didn’t help his cause. Newly acquired Felipe Rivero has not acclimated well to Harrisburg, to say the least. Blake Schwartz has not adjusted well to the jump to AA after his excellent season in Potomac last year. The one bright spot seems to be A.J. Cole by ERA/FIP, but he’s still putting an awful lot of people on base (1.57 whip).

Sammy Solis remains on the AA D/L, along with a handful of other long-serving names in this organization (Paul Demny, Rafael Martin and Pat Lehman).

Bullpen Notables

Zach Jackson already earned his promotion via 7 scoreless innings, though to be fair he really should have been in AAA to start (he’s a veteran minor leaguer and has been pitching at the AAA level for nearly a decade). Matt Grace is faring well thus far, as is Richie Mirowski, while Gabriel Alfaro needs to get his control under control (he’s got 9 walks in 11 1/3 innings).

Most Deserving of a promotion: none of these guys are pushing for a promotion, now that Jackson is back in AAA where he belongs.

Most in Jeopardy of a demotion/release: You have to think that Purke may be in jeopardy of being coverted to relief at this point. Alfaro was a MLFA signing out of the Mexican league and may not be long for the organization if he keeps pitching this badly. Gilliam was a throw-in to the Gio Gonzalez trade and is old for the level; he may get pushed out if someone from Potomac makes a case for promotion (which, thankfully for him, has yet to be the case; read on).

High-A/Potomac

Pitcher

Start Trend Line

W/L

ERA

Whip

FIP

K/BB Ratio

# of innings

Apps/Starts

Rauh

B-,F-,C+,C-

1-1

4.43

1.57

4

15/7

20.1

5/4

Rpena

F,D,F/inc,A-,A-

2-0

6.43

1.48

5.71

5/8

21

5/5

Mooneyham

F,C-,A-,D/short,B-

2-1

3.32

1.63

6.71

7/19

19

5/4

Bacus

A+,A+,A (into rotation for Encarnacion)

1-1

2.08

0.69

4.7

15/3

17.1

6/0

Simms

(newly promoted; no Apr starts)

Dickson

B+,F,B+,A

0-2

6.23

1.38

5.37

21/7

21.3

7/0

Encarnacion

C+,B,F,D- ->d/l

1-2

4.00

1.94

5.88

14/12

18

4/4

Lee

F-,F-,D,A -> d/l

0-2

10.05

1.74

2.33

23/8

14.1

5/4

Fister

B (rehab)

0-0

0.00

1.5

2.16

3/0

4

1/1

Dupra

A+,B+,A,A-> promoted

3-0

0.53

0.71

1.31

23/1

17

5/0

Rotation Discussion:

Potomac is sitting in 1st place easily with the rest of its division struggling so far. But Its hard to see how they’re doing it with a rotation putting up numbers like this. The only guy getting starts for Potomac in April with a respectable/impressive FIP was Nick Lee, and he’s on the D/L. But even Lee’s numbers look completely weird: he had a 10 (ten!) ERA in his 14 innings, but an astounding 23 ks in 14 innings. His numbers are completely spiked by two successive awful outings and he currently sits on the D/L with an unspecified but hopefully short-term injury. Dakota Bacus earned his way into the rotation with a series of excellent long-relief outings; he replaces the also-injured opening day rotation starter Pedro Encarnacion, who himself struggled with his control (12 walks in 18 innings) before hitting the D/L. Otherwise there’s not much notable in the Potomac rotation to talk about: Brett Mooneyham‘s advanced numbers show just how bad he’s really pitched; he currently has a 7/19 K/BB ratio in 19 innings. He has more than twice the number of walks as he has strikeouts! That’s not a recipe for success long-term.

Kylin Turnbull remains on the Hagerstown D/L, continuing to be a complete 2011 draft-day disappointment.

Bullpen Notables

The best reliever in Potomac thus far this season has already been bumped up; Brian Dupra posted a nifty 23/1 K/BB ratio and earned his way to AA. Robert Benincasa already has 5 saves with good numbers. Derek Self has great numbers and has given up just three base-runners in 10 innings thus far. So the Nats are getting some great relief. Gilberto Mendez hasn’t walked a guy yet and is one of the youngest guys in the league, so he’s clearly holding his own after posting a 0.91 ERA in low-A last year.

Most Deserving of a promotion: Outside of Dupra, its hard to pinpoint someone that really is pushing for a promotion out of this squad right now. Bacus is pitching well but he’s just got a month of high-A experience; lets see how he does for a half season. I could see the late-inning crew of Self, Benincasa and Bryan Harper possibly getting moved up sooner than later. But none of the starters really are making a case for promotion right now.

Most in Jeopardy of a demotion/release: Clearly for me the guy in trouble is Mooneyham; you just can’t be walking that many guys and have as little swing-and-miss capabilities to counter-balance your wildness. Before his injury, Encarnacion was struggling with his command too; I can see him back in low-A. Lastly Ronald Pena just is not fooling anybody right now; he’s got just 5 Ks in 20 innings and would be in more jeopardy if there weren’t other candidates ahead of him to replace at this point.

Low-A/Hagerstown

Pitcher

Start Trend Line

W/L

ERA

Whip

FIP

K/BB Ratio

# of innings

Apps/Starts

Pivetta

A,A-,F,F,B+

3-2

4.57

1.48

4.36

13/10

21.2

5/5

Voth

A,D,A-,D/short

0-2

2.91

1.38

2.7

26/10

21.1

5/5

Giolito

D-,A+,A,C-,C-

1-0

2.95

1.22

3.62

24/11

21.1

5/5

Anderson

A,A+,F,D-

3-0

6.33

1.36

4.98

13/6

21.1

5/3

Johansen

B,B+,F,C-

2-0

5.21

1.53

3.84

17/11

19

4/4

Suero

D,A,B,A

3-0

1.20

0.88

3.53

13/2

21.2

5/0

Cooper

B,A+,D

2-0

2.81

1.31

2.57

11/1

16

5/0

Jthomas

A+,A-

1-2

2.53

1.22

4.51

4/5

10.2

5/0

Ullmann

B+

0-0

0.00

0.8

2.67

9/2

10

4/0

Hollins

A-

2-0

4.35

1.74

3.86

9/7

10.1

8/0

Silvestre

B+,inc (inj)->d/l

0-0

3.00

1.33

2.24

7/2

6

2/2

Simms

A,A,A,A+->promoted

0-0

0.98

0.82

2.05

20/2

18.1

5/0

Spann

B+,A-,B+,B+->promoted

2-0

1.20

1.13

2.77

15/4

15

4/0

Rotation Discussion:

Hagerstown is taking the South Atlantic league by storm, leading its division by 5.5 games already. And they’re getting some great pitching. The team clearly seems to be doing “combo starts” with some of its guys: that’s why someone like Wander Suero has as many IP as the 5 guys in the “rotation.” So, when it comes to judging starts nearly the entire staff in Hagerstown has “start length” outings to assign grades to. I like what I see out of Austin Voth so far, and Lucas Giolito is clearly holding his own in full-season ball (both these guys feature more than a K/inning, which is great to see especially out of the undersized Voth). Meanwhile we’re seeing some worrying wildness out of Jake Johansen, which will not quell the “he’s too big to be a starter so he’s destined for the bullpen” crowd.

Bullpen Notables

John Simms (11th rounder in 2012) and Matthew Spann (booty for the team’s sticking its nose into the David DeJesus waiver situation last year) have both already forced promotions thanks to excellent results. Otherwise there really isn’t much in the way of a traditional “bullpen” in Hagerstown to talk about.

Most Deserving of a promotion: I’d say Voth and Jake Walsh, who older guys who are mowing guys down in Low-A and may need to be challenged by better/older hitters.

Most in Jeopardy of a demotion: One of the older guys on this staff (Dixon Anderson) isn’t putting up the numbers he needs to be putting up as a college senior 2011 draftee in low-A. Youngster Nicholas Pivetta is also struggling with the jump to full-season ball out of JuCo and may be dumped back to XST at some point. But it should also be said that we’re kind of squinting for bad performances out of the Low-A squad; both these guys’ numbers are better than practically anyone in AA right now.

Top Prospect Review

From a trending perspective for our top 10 prospect arms (in rough order of their typical rankings on prospect lists):

Giolito is succeeding so far, though isn’t as dominant yet to be pushing for a promotion to High-A

Cole is holding his own and is the best AA starter right now, but again isn’t entirely pushing for a AAA promotion just quite yet.

Solis has yet to appear thanks to a late spring training injury.

Rivero has really struggled since his arrival

Johansen has shown some wildness and not as much swing-and-miss stuff as he did in short-season ball.

Purke has been awful and it may be time to move him to the Pen.

Voth has been excellent and is probably the closest to a promotion.

Barrett and Treinien have both earned promotions to provide MLB cover, and when in AAA have been effective

Jefry Rodriguez is in XST and didn’t make a full-season team.

Conclusions:

So far, I must say i’m a bit disappointed in the performance of the AA squad, but its great to see the promise of the Low-A squad. I’m slightly worried about how our closer-to-the-majors top prospect arms are looking; lets re-visit in a month and see how it looks.

Walter’s hot start to the spring has him in a lot of people’s thoughts… Photo unk via wp.com

Well, the entire DC area was off-work with yesterday’s (hopefully) final snowfall of the season snarling roads and cancelling work. But Tom Boswell was busy chatting. Here’s how i’d have answered his baseball-related questions from his WP chat session on 3/3/14.

Q: Walters is 5-5 and making some impressive defensive plays. Do you foresee him being more than a September call up this year – perhaps a quality utility player? He also seems like a sharp kid and an interesting character.

A: Well, the only “impressive play” I’ve seen Zach Walters pull off was a 2-run scoring throwing error … but that’s just a “short sample size.” To answer this question; yes I think Walters is more than a 9/1 call up this year; I think he’s going to be the first guy called up (ahead of both Jamie Carroll and/or Mike Fontenot at this point) if we need middle infield coverage. I’m worried about his defense (as has been noted in this space before), so I dunno how much we want to depend on him … but so far he’s looking impressive indeed at the plate. What more does he have to prove in AAA? The more he hits, the more he pressures the organization to give him a shot at the MLB level. Boswell doesn’t know either; there’s no room at the inn for him here; maybe a trade is in order to either move him or free up space for him.

Q: If Danny Espinosa can find his swing and cut down on the strikeouts, could Matt Williams get 300+ ABs for him alternating between 2nd/SS/3rd as a super utility?

A: I’m pretty sure that’s the plan for him even if he doesn’t necessarily “find his swing” right now. Who would you rather go to war with as your backup infielder right now? Danny Espinosa or a 40-yr old punch-less middle infielder like Carrol or Fontenot? More and more I think the decision may be Espinosa vs Walters. Boswell agrees, thinking Espinosa *is* going to be the primary utility guy for this team.

Q: Does Mussina get in to HOF?

A: Hmm. That is a tough one. On the one hand his career bWAR is *way* up there (82.7, which puts him in some very heady company right around 50th best in the history of the game). JAWS likes him, and the “Hall of Fame Standards” metric on B-R.com thinks he’s borderline. On the other hand his ERA isn’t fantastic (career 3.68, career ERA+ of 123, which is about what Jimmy Key or Tim Hudson are pitching to for their careers). Didn’t get the magical 300 wins or 3,000 strikeouts. Never won a Cy Young but was in the top 6 in voting 9 times out of 18 years. Five all-star appearances, seven gold gloves. 7-8 with a 3.42 ERA in 139 2/3 post season innings, where he peaked in his 1997 exploits in an epic Baltimore vs Cleveland series. I think he was unquestionably one of the best arms in the game for a period of time, even if Cy Young’s don’t show it. He did not have the greatest reputation with the media though.

Answer? I’d vote for him, but i’m a “bigger hall” guy. I think he’s the type who gets in after a few votes to gather steam as people remember how good he was. But I think its also telling that his best player comparable on B-R is Andy Pettitte, another very borderline hall-of-fame guy. There’s certainly no PED usage issues with Mussina; maybe that’s enough to get him votes that other players will never get. Boswell agrees with my sentiments here.

Q: What are the Syracuse Chiefs expecting in terms of a pitching staff this year?

A: In December 2013, here’s what I predicted for Syracuse’s pitching staff:

What’s happened since then? We traded away Karns, resigned Ryan Tatusko, resigned Tyler Robinson, signed Clay Hensley , signed a lefty Zack Jackson, signed a righty Warner Madrigal, signed former Nat Luis Ayala, traded for Felipe Rivero, signed Josh Roenicke and (just today) signed another former Nat Reliever Michael Gonzalez.

Phew. That’s a lot of guys signed who all look like they belong in AAA. I honestly have no idea how spring training is going to shake out but I do see one issue here: none of these new guys coming in are starters. So with Karns traded away, we’re looking at just 3-4 true starters left out of all these guys. Does Tatusko go back into the rotation? Do the Nats throw a bone to one of the remaining veteran FA starters out there (Joe Saunders has local connections, and Barry Zito could use some work).

If I had to guess, right now, what 5 starters and 7-8 relievers break camp and fly to upstate NY i’d go with the following:

As for the rest of these guys? Maybe some push back to AA, maybe the rest exercise out clauses and hit MLFA again. But there definitely seems like a ton of 4-A/AAA guys for not a lot of spots. Boswell has no idea and openly solicits input from people who do follow the Nats minors.

Q: Why is the opener in Australia a real game instead of an Exhibition?

A: Probably because the moment it becomes an exhibition thousands of miles away … teams would basically send their AAA squads. And MLB knows it, so they have to be “real games.” Boswell just notes how unfair it is to the teams that play.

Q: What’s the best way to get Bryce Harper’s autograph on a special piece of memorabilia?

A: Probably to go to Spring Training and bring along a little kid That’s my plan, eventually, to use Son-as-proxy to get cool autographs. Of course, I also have this thing where everytime i’m in a position to get an autograph I have the player customize it to my son … cheesy, sure. But i’m not acquiring autographs to re-sell them or some fool thing. Boswell doens’t have any good advice.

Q: Assuming you could afford them all and they would resign, if you had to who on the current roster to make “lifelong” Nats – who would you choose among Desmond/Zimmermann/Strasburg/Harper? And who is the most replaceable?

A: Great question. The kind that will inevitably lead to 30+ comments here

Assuming money is no object and that they’d all re-sign, I think your “lifelong” Nats have to be in order Desmond, Harper, Strasburg, and then Zimmermann. All four if you can get them. I think they’re replaceable in this order: Zimmermann, Strasburg, Desmond and Harper. But even that order is splitting hairs between Strasburg and Desmond; who is more replaceable? A top-5 short stop in the league or a top-10 arm? I dunno. Harper is in a league by himself; you just can’t replicate power hitters who matriculate to the majors by age 19.

I think Zimmermann is the most replaceable by our pipeline of upper-end arms. The other three guys, not so much.

By the way, this question goes to the essence of my arguments against “Big Money GMs” as postulated in the post and comments sections of my big GM Rankings post last week. This question is entirely moot if you have a $200M payroll. Do you think Brian Cashman ever had to sit down with his ownership and go, “ok we’ve got Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams and Jorge Posada coming up on the end of their deals: we can only keep a couple of them; which ones are we letting walk?”

Boswell goes slightly different order of replaceability, putting Strasburg ahead of Desmond because the Nats have Espinosa and Walters. Uh … not sure I think either of those two guys is a “replacement” for Desmond right now Mr. Boswell. Nonetheless he also postulates that the Nats really can only keep two of the four, and that internally they keep a “5 max contract” limit in place, meaning that they still have some flexibility to keep three of these four guys.

Q: I am not impressed with the Nats’ bench, because it is a bucket full of strikeouts. Does this open a door for Jamey Carroll to make the Opening Day roster? Would it be a bad sign if he did?

A: I cut-n-pasted this whole question because I love the “bucket-full of strikeouts” line. Maybe a grizzled vet keeps Carroll instead of Espinosa or Tyler Moore. Maybe not. But if you carry Carroll instead of Moore, you are trading one commodity (defense) for another (power). I’d rather have Moore but understand the positional flexibility of Carroll. Boswell seems to intimate the decision will be Carroll vs Walters: why does everyone assume Moore is making this team with two other backup outfielders already under multi-million dollar contracts??

Q: If Zach Walters continues his excellent play from the end of last year deep into the Spring, and Danny Espinosa parties like it’s 2012, do you see the Nats dealing Espinosa this year, or are his defensive skills at short and second too valuable to lose?

A: Yes, I think Espinosa will eventually be traded, as I’ve noted many times here (best summarized in this 1/2/14 Ladson inbox response). But, he has to regain value first. If he’s suddenly returning to a near 100 ops+ hitter with his defensive prowness, there’s a whole slew of teams that could use an upgrade at the position (just perusing RotoWorld depth charts, I can see a 2011-esque Espinosa being a desirable choice to current options for at least Houston, Minnesota, Miami, maybe the Mets, Pittsburgh, San Diego, maybe Chicago (WS), maybe the Angels, maybe Seattle, and maybe the Dodgers (so they can move Hanley Ramirez back to 3B). And that doesn’t even look at the 2B options out there that he could ably fill. Boswell notes this little nugget; the Dodgers sniffed around on Espinosa exactly to do what I just said; move Hanley back to third.

Q: Should we be concerned about middle infield depth? If Espinosa can’t hit over .200, who’s left? Jamey Carroll’s OBP was .267 in 227 ABs last season… yikes.

A: I’m not concerned because we should only have to count on one of these guys. Espinosa (as mentioned ad naseum) had a pretty legitimate excuse for his BA last year; he was hurt. He’s healthy now; there should be no reason he doesn’t return to at least a .240 guy with power he was for his first couple of seasons. Boswell points at his new favorite fan boy Zach Walters.

Q: Assuming the Nats fifth starter (whoever it may be though I’m pulling for Detwiler) has a great “fifth starter” season, how good can we expect it to be? Has any fifth starter won 15-20 games?

A: I think a “good” season out of our 5th starter would be 28 starts, a 14-8 record or something like that, and an ERA in the 3.50 range. I’d love to see that happen. Has a 5th starter ever won 15-20 games? I have no idea how you’d find that out; it isn’t as if starters are “labeled” by their rotational rankings like we do in the sportswriting world. I looked up a couple of options though to see how some “5th” starters fared on some very good teams (looking up the winningest teams I could think of in the 5th starter era)

The 5th starter for the 108 win 1986 Mets was Rick Aguilera; he went 10-7 with a 3.66 ERA.

The 114-game winning 1998 Yankees 5th starter was Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez, who went 12-4 and had the best ERA+ on the staff, but he wasn’t exactly a “normal” 5th starter. In reality by the time the playoffs rolled around the real 5th starter was Hideki Irabu: he was 13-9 in the regular season but didn’t get a start in the post-season.

Lastly the 116-game winning 2001 Mariners’ 5th starter seemed to be John Halama, who went 10-7 despite a 4.73 ERA and was replaced mid-season by rookie Joel Pineiro.

Boswell notes a good point; if a “5th starter” wins 20 games … people forget he was the 5th starter.

Q: He had 38 (or thereabouts) errors in Syracuse this year. I don’t think there should be any serious talk of him spending significant time with the Nats until he can clean up his fielding in AAA.

A: I wonder if the person who sent in this question also reads me. By the way: the break down of Errors (per b-r.com) was 31 errors in 104 games at short to go along with 7 additional errors in 27 games while playing third. That’s a LOT of errors. And it is almost entirely consistent with the number of errors he committed in 2012 in AA. So this wasn’t a fluke season.

We all hear stories about how crummy minor league fields are and how they contribute to poor fielding numbers for players. Have you ever played on a pro field? They’re miles better than any amateur field and looked beyond immaculate to me. I wonder just how much nicer they can get honestly.

But, yes I do somewhat agree with the questioner here; I’d like to see Walters have a cleaner fielding season before counting on him. That being said, we should all remember that we were ready to string up Ian Desmond for his fielding issues … now he’s a gold-glove calibre talent. Boswell brings up Desmond’s incredibly poor minor league fielding record … maybe there’s more truth to the whole minor league field issue than we thought.

Q: Do you think Storen might not be long for the team? I’ve felt for some time that Game 5 in 2012 truly affected how Rizzo sees him. Also, many like to say they have three guys who have closed in the bullpen. I feel the 7th, 8th and 9th are all different so that theory doesn’t always work. Thoughts?

A: I’m not sure if 2012 has anything to do with it: Drew Storen definitely got squeezed in that inning and in some ways was very unlucky. And as my dad likes to point out, Davey Johnson‘s usage of Storen in the series (and his bullpen management overall) really left something to be desired. Nonetheless, to answer the question no I think Storen is eventually moved, not because of any bad blood but because of simple economics. We’ve got a really expensive bullpen and three closer-quality guys when only one is needed. At some point we will cash in. I’m not sure I believe that 7th/8th/9th innings require different mindsets; you still want guys who can get people out, you want swing-and-miss talents, you want people who can keep the ball in the park and not walk anyone. Boswell doesn’t really answer the question.

(I should have published this in early December but got caught up in a glut of other posts; posting this now in lieu of just trashing it).

The Nats for years were heavy participants in the Rule-5 draft, thanks to some pretty awful teams and some shrewd scouting. In November 2011 I did a Rule-5 Draft history, and I thought I’d update it for the last few drafts, now that 2013’s draft is complete. Borrowing a chunk of the text for the previous years from the previous post, here’s a list of the Rule 5 drafts since 2005, with our players taken/received noted and with some thoughts on how the player turned out for either side. Note I’m mostly only doing this analysis for the major league section of the rule 5 draft; there’s just far too little eventual MLB success to be found in the AAA and AA sections of the Rule 5 draft to do the analysis. I will note some notables who get snapped up in the minor league section for the later years.

Tony Blanco: 1B; drafted from Cincinnati. He batted .177 as a 1st baseman backup while eating a roster spot all season, then we cut him from AAA after 2007. He kicked around Colorado’s system for a year and has been playing in Japan ever since. Verdict: failure.

Tyrell Godwin: CF, drafted from Toronto. Prior to the 2005 season, the team traded another minor leaguer to keep his rights, so this really played out less like a Rule-5 pickup in that Godwin didn’t have to stick on the 25-man roster all year. He played a grand total of 3 games for the Nats, kicked around AAA for a while an hung them up in 2007. Verdict: failure.

Chris Booker was rule-5 drafted by Detroit, who immediately sold him to Philadelphia, who then waived him in May of 2006 with the intent of returning him … except that Kansas City picked him up, hung onto him for a couple months and eventually returned him to Washington. The Nats eventually called him up but he was relatively ineffective and he washed out of the game (seemingly due to injuries) after 2008.

Jesus Flores, C, drafted from the New York Mets, stuck with the team all year despite having only played high-A ball in the minors. Despite his eventual injury issues that plagued him for the better part of 3 seasons, Flores remains the best example of a “found gold” prospect that can be had in the Rule 5 draft. After the Nats DFA’d him last off-season, he bounced around both LA and Tampa’s AAA teams in 2013 but did not appear in the majors. Verdict: success.

Levale Speigner RHP (a closer) was drafted from Minnesota and, as with Booker above, eventually was traded for by the Nats so they could keep him and stash him in the minors. After some awful outings for the big team, he passed through waivers mid 2008 and was released from AAA in 2008, bounced around a couple other organizations, and retired after 2010. Verdict: failure.

The Nats lost one player in this draft:

Alejandro Machada was drafted by Minnesota just a month after the Nats had re-signed him to a minor league contract. So Machada didn’t have to stay on their active roster. And indeed he didn’t; he was injured all of 2007 and stayed with Minnesota’s AAA team until 2009, never again broaching the majors.

Matt Whitney: 1B/3B, Drafted and then eventually returned back to Cleveland, who eventually made the former 1st rounder a ML free agent and we signed him after the 2008 season. We cut him after the 2009 season and he retired after 2010. Verdict: failure.

Garrett Guzman: LF/RF: after Rule-5 selecting him, the team eventually traded a PTBNL for him to Minnesota, then we cut him outright and nobody picked him up. He played two years of Independent ball and was out of baseball after 2010. Guzman is more infamously known as the player who was caught having sex with an underage girl while playing for our AA team in Harrisburg in 2008, likely the reason why nobody picked him up after his DFA. Verdict: failure.

The Nats lost one player of note in the minor league phase in this draft:

Brett Campbell was drafted by Milwaukee in the AAA phase of the rule-5 draft. Milwaukee released him in spring training of the subsequent 2008 season and Campbell never played another inning of pro baseball. This seems especially odd to me: he was drafted in 2004 and rose all the way through the Nats system to debut in the majors by Sept of 2006. He pitched in just two games in 2006, and returned to the minors in 2007. Was he hurt? He was only 26 when he apparently hung them up. Oddity.

Terrell Young: Drafted with the #1 pick in the Rule 5 draft from Cincinnati. He got hurt, never played for us, and was eventually returned to the Reds. His injury was severe enough that he was out of baseball after being drafted; he has no professional games after 2008. Verdict: failure.

Ricardo Nanita, selected in the minor league phase, played most of 2009, then went to the Mexican league, then got picked up by Toronto in minor league free agency and has been there ever since, playing all of 2013 in Buffalo. Verdict: failure.

Jamie Hoffman; OF, Drafted with the #1 pick in the Rule 5 draft from Los Angeles Dodgers and immediately traded for Brian Bruney in a pre-arranged deal. NY returned him to the Dodgers later that spring. Bruney, meanwhile, immediately went to arbitration and lost with the team in the spring of 2010, was awful out of the gate, and the team outright released him before the end of May. Verdict: failure, all the way around this transaction.

The team lost one player in this draft:

Zech Zinicola was drafted away from us by Toronto, who eventually returned him to the Nats without any Toronto appearances. His selection was probably due to Dana Brown‘s hiring in Toronto, going from Washington’s Scouting Director to being a special assistant to the GM in Toronto. Zinicola remained in our farm system until 2013, when he was released.

Elvin Ramirez, RH reliever, drafted from the New York Mets: he was injured in spring training and spent the entirety of the season on the DL. Interestingly, the team returned him to New York in October, long before they needed to, and with New York this year he made his way to the majors for some appearances. If the team drafted him, why not keep him through spring training of 2012 to see if he was worth keeping? It just seemed odd to give up on the draft pick while procedurally you could still keep him. Verdict: failure.

Brian Broderick, RH Starting Pitcher, Drafted from St. Louis and stuck into the 2011′s bullpen as the long-man/mop-up guy. He was awful, he was costing the team wins, and was eventually returned to St. Louis before May was out. However, St. Louis waived him towards the end of 2012 and we picked him back up. I projected him to be one of our AAA starters in 2013 but he struggled and ended the season in AA and likely will be cut loose this off-season. Verdict: failure.

The team lost one player in the 2010 draft:

The Phillies drafted Michael Martinez away from the Nats, and he stuck on their roster as a backup middle infielder. His batting lines are awful though, and the Nats clearly had depth at middle infield at the time, so losing this player was not that big of a deal. Even now, with his career .187 batting line, he couldn’t have helped us.

The Nats did not take anyone for the first time in years, but had two players themselves taken. Neither player drafted was a surprise; I posted at the time that I thought both these players should have been protected.

Brad Meyers (RH starting pitcher) was drafted by the New York Yankees, but he suffered an injury in spring training and was DL’d all year. He was returned to the Nats and subsequently missed all of 2013 too. I listed him as a “release candidate” in my 2014 rotation projections, not knowing if he’s healthy or if he can win a AAA rotation spot at this point with the talent we have matriculating upwards.

Erik Komatsu was drafted by St. Louis (in retaliation for our taking Broderick the previous year?), made their 2012 opening day roster, played for a while before being waived, got picked up by Minnesota, and by Memorial Day was returned to Washington in a whirlwind set of transactions. I think he remains a minor league caliber player, with too little offense for a corner outfield position but not enough speed to play center.

Again, the team did not select anyone but got poached for four players in the major and minor phase.

LHP Danny Rosenbaum was drafted by Colorado to take part in their unique rotation experiment (where guys work up to a certain pitch count each night). Rosenbaum didn’t make the Rockie’s pitching staff out of spring training (somewhat an indictment of Rosenbaum’s skills; Colorado’s rotation was one of the worst in the majors in 2013) and he was returned to Nats. As most readers here know, Rosenbaum toiled in AAA a full season, putting up good but not great numbers, and seems like he’s destined to repeat that season for us again in 2014.

Utility player Jeff Kobernus was drafted by the Boston Red Sox, traded to Tigers and then eventually returned to Nats. Kobernus turned out to be quite the speedster, stealing nearly a base every other game in the minors and earned a call-up to the big team in 2013. At this point the team must feel relatively lucky to have gotten Kobernus back, given his call-up and possible future role as a backup.

In the minor league phase, Nats draft bust Jack McGeary was taken by the Red Sox. He threw 21 ineffective innings in short-A and low-A for Boston in 2013. He’s from Boston, so it was a nice gesture, but it just doesn’t look like he’s ever going to recover from his arm issues. Hey, at least he got his Stanford education and his bonus money.

The Dodgers poached Hector Nelo from the Nats AA team and stuck him on their own AA team … where he promptly made the all-star game again and had another excellent season. I’ll be honest; I do not know the minor league rule-5 protection rules, but I wonder why an all-star player was exposed, no matter what his age.

Once again, the team did not select anyone in the major league phase. We did lose one player in the MLB phase:

C Adrian Nieto was the 2nd overall pick in the major league phase, by the Chicago White Sox. As commenters noted though, it seemed like an odd pick for the White Sox, who have a couple of younger developing catchers in their system. Meanwhile Nieto has never played above A-ball but did hit .285/.373/.449 this season. Those are pretty good numbers for a catcher … even if he’s an old 24 in A-Ball. I speculated in the comments of other posts that perhaps the White Sox just needed some catching help during the split squad games in 2014’s spring training, because the odds of Nieto sticking on a MLB roster for a full year seem incredibly slim. I didn’t even mention him in my own pre-Rule5 analysis piece for all of this reasoning. Its hard not to see him getting returned to the Nats by April 1st.

In the minor league phase, the Nats took a couple of players for organizational depth: Theo Bowe, a AA outfielder from Cincinnati and Martires Arias, a low-A right-hander from the New York Mets. As mentioned above, these minor league acquisitions are essentially $12,000 purchases and the Nats now own these contracts.

Summary: we’ve drafted 10 guys in the MLB phase Rule 5 draft since 2005, and I’d classify 9 of the 10 draftees as eventual failures. Not a great track record. Plus its safe to say that most every player drafted FROM us has been a failure for the drafting team (the exceptions perhaps being Martinez or possibly Nelo). Clearly the Rule 5 draft isn’t a great way to reliably find players. Why do we do so much analysis on it? I dunno, because its fun? Because its December and we’re desperate for Baseball news? Fair enough

Discussion: the 5th starter competition could shake out so many different ways, that it almost is not worth predicting. I can see any of the following scenarios playing out:

Detwiler gets one last shot at the 5th starter as the incumbent, pushing Jordan to AAA and Ohlendorf/Roark to the bullpen (my current prediction).

Jordan wins the 5th starter, pushing Detwiler to the bullpen as a power lefty by virtue of his lack of options. This would push (likely) Roark to AAA.

Roark wins the 5th starter, continuing his blistering sub 2.00 ERA pace from September, pushing Detwiler to the bullpen and Jordan to AAA.

Less likely, Karns wins the 5th spot, which pushes Detwiler to the bullpen and Roark & Jordan to AAA.

Even more less likely, Ohlendorf wins the spot, which pushes Detwiler to the bullpen but lets Roark stay as the long man/spot-starter.

Mike Rizzo shocks us again with another starter acquisition; Detwiler goes to the bullpen, Ohlendorf stays as long man, and Roark & Jordan are in AAA.

Why am I predicting Detwiler will win the rotation spot? Partly because of options, but partly because I’ve sort of come back around on him after looking more closely at his 2013 season. He had a decent to good 2012; he posted a 118 ERA+ and even if his advanced FIP/SIERA didn’t indicate he was quite that good, he was still more than a servicable 5th starter. Then in his first seven 2013 starts he was also very good (he had a 2.53 ERA in his first 7 starts and 42 2/3 innings … he got hurt in his 8th start). The rest of his season was a mess, with him fighting injury and ballooning his seasonal ERA from 2.53 to more than 4.00 in five more starts. If he comes back healthy to start 2014, why wouldn’t we expect more of the same performance that he had at the start of 2013? For these two reasons, I think Detwiler breaks camp as the 5th starter. Now …. I have zero confidence that he’ll remain healthy enough to keep his spot in the rotation, but that’s a problem for another day. And a problem for which this team has plenty of coverage.

Another scenario that could affect this predition: Rizzo acquires yet another lefty reliever (latest rumors were about Scott Downs before he signed elsewhere, but I’m sure a trade could be arranged), which complicates any of these predictions because it means one less spot for either Ohlendorf or Roark. For a team that seems so obsessed with left-handed relievers, we sure have let a bunch of them go in recent years (Duke, Abad, Krol this year, Gorzelanny, Lannan, Burnett and Gonzalez last year). Maybe we should just hang on to one or two of these guys? I will say this: I do NOT believe that the Nats will choose Xavier Cedeno and his 6 2013 MLB innings for the Nats over Roark just because he’s left handed at this point.

Personally, I think Roark and Ohlendorf pitched like big leagers last year and deserve to stay in the majors until they prove otherwise. Ohlendorf’s recent $1.25M deal seems to indicate he’s more likely to stick than Roark, but perhaps the long-man/spot starter competition is open as well. This pushes previous stalwards in the bullpen (specifically Ryan Mattheus ) to AAA. I will say this though: if you expect to win, you have to go north with your 25 best guys no matter how much they make or their option status. And at the end of last year, that undoubtedly included Tanner Roark. So thats why I’m going with Roark in the pen to start the season.

One other wrinkle; does Rizzo trade one of Storen or Clippard to Chicago, who desperately needs a closer? This seems less likely, especially for a team that has World Series aspirations, but the truth is this team is paying a LOT of money into its bullpen ($25M and counting), has three closer-quality guys, and potentially a log jam of righties (see the AAA bullpen prediction for more). I see this as less likely unless Chicago sends back pieces that we really need, but rumors get started because GMs are talking, so maybe this still happens. But if a guy like that is traded, then that re-opens a slot for the deposed Mattheus or possibly the newly healthy an electric Garcia. I think these are lesser possibilities and both those guys are pushed to AAA to begin the season.

I’m sure this section garners plenty of discussion; have at it in the comments

So, the projected AAA rotation has one hold over in Rosenbaum, two “promotions” in Jordan and Karns, and then a whole bunch of question marks. Is Chris Young healthy enough to pitch this year? Is Brad Meyers? Right now i’ve got Meyers as a release candidate, figuring that he hasn’t been healthy in two years and may be finished. I have to think that the team will give a couple of lower-level free agents minor league contracts to try to pitch their way back into the league, much as they have done with the likes of Zach Duke, Ross Ohlendorf and Young in the last couple of off-seasons. There’s plenty of guys out there who may make sense; a quick glance at the current list of free agents offers intriguing names (think of someone like a Joe Saunders or a Barry Zito or an Aaron Harang; do you think these guys are getting guaranteed contracts for 2014?). I’m predicting that at least one or two of these types of guys get MLFA deals and end up in the AAA rotation, though I suppose at least one guy i’m projecting from the AA rotation could start in AAA.

The AAA bullpen has a couple of MLB-quality arms in Ryan Mattheus and Christian Garcia who we know can contribute at the MLB level but who end up here because of a numbers game at the big club. The AAA closer likely is Aaron Barrett, newly added to the 40-man and looking to make his mark. Erik Davis is here, who I kind of soured on last season but his numbers in small MLB samples were good and I think he can contribute in a Craig Stammen sort of way going forward. We have a couple of hold-over loogies in Xavier Cedeno and Tyler Robertson, the latter of which successfully passed through waivers and was outrighted to Syracuse last month. We already have three off-season MLFA signings (Gabriel Alfaro, Daniel Stange, Manny Delcarmen) who all project as righty middle relievers, making it seemingly less likely that the team will retain some of its own MLFAs (the likes of Ryan Tatusko and Jeff Mandel being longer serving Nats minor leaguers who pitched decently in 2013).

But as you can see there’s more candidates here than there is room on the Syracuse roster (10 for 7 spots, and that’s assuming that Pat Lehman doesn’t make the cut either). There will be injuries and D/L stints among these guys, but there may also be some releases next March.

Still, a AAA rotation led by Jordan and Karns (and possibly Ohlendorf and/or Roark if another move is made at the MLB level) leaves Syracuse with a pretty good staff to start the season. And I like the fact that we have one reasonably accomplished MLB starter (Jordan) waiting in the wings to go along with a guy who might get there soon (Karns), to go with potentially a couple other former major league guys who are working their way back.

We’ll see this trend again and again; despite the fact that the likes of A.J. Cole and Taylor Hill reached AA last year, the organization seems to like seeing these guys “beat the level” a second season in a row before moving guys up. And so I see these guys in AA again. Sammy Solis here is no surprise; he’s nearly 26 and has been mentioned as a MLB bullpen candidate already. Meanwhile for the time being i’ve got Blake Treinen here, repeating the level, but can also see him moving up to AAA. His numbers were good but not *that* good last year, and I left him in AA assuming that the team will try out some re-treads in the AAA rotation. Lastly Blake Schwartz gets a deserved promotion after leading Potomac in IP, wins and starts last year.

In the bullpen I think Robert Benincasa is your closer to start, with Richie Mirowski and Neil Holland continuing to put up dominating late-innings relief. All three guys should be pushing for promotions to AAA. We’re a little light on lefties here admittedly. A couple of injury-prone guys in Ryan Perry and Cameron Selik are listed as release candidates in the face of a number of guys meriting placement here. Paul Demny and Rafael Martin have been around forever and may also be release candidates at this point, but they also could (at least in Demny’s case) convert to relief and try to rekindle their careers. Lastly, there’s newly acquired Matthew Spann, the bounty for the Nats gambit on David Dejesus near the end of last season. He’s a lefty who looks like he could start but i’ve got him in the bullpen for now.

I don’t think there’s too many surprises in this rotation: Matthew Purke leads the line and should push for a promotion mid-season. If he doesn’t dominate High-A at this point it may be time to think about moving him to the pen. The same can be said about Brett Mooneyham and especially Kylin Turnbull, two guys who (by now) should have accomplished this level. Otherwise the rest of this projected rotation are three guys who succeeded in Low-A in 2013: Dixon Anderson, Pedro Encarnacion and Dakoda Bacus.

In the bullpen, at this point i’m not sure who the closer candidates are to start the season. Perhaps Greg Holt starts in the role. Perhaps low-A phenom Gilberto Mendez gets a shot at closing. Both Holt and Rob Wort may belong in AA at this point; Wort began 2013 there but there’s a lot of relievers in that AA section who would have to get hurt/be released to make room for these two guys right now. There’s a couple of decent swingmen candidates here in Ronald Pena and Ian Dickson both started for long stretches in Hagerstown and could be useful guys in Potomac. There’s a lot of names in the mix here for this bullpen; from here on down there could be plenty of releases come the end of spring.

I like this rotation, a lot. Two of our best prospects, a third guy in Austin Voth who impressed last year, a guy in Nick Lee who probably deserves a high-A rotation spot and then Auburn’s staff leader in Robert Orlan. Jake Johansen may find himself needing a promotion quickly, if he’s all that he’s cracked up to be.

The bullpen is going to be tough; basically every college aged short-season guy who pitched well in 2013 is named in this bullpen competition. There’s a couple of interesting DSL graduates in Wander Suero and Phillips Valdez, some big arms in Ryan Ullmann and Nick Pivetta, and some polished college-aged lefties in David Napoli, Cory Bafidis and Jake Walsh. I have 15 names here for 7-8 spots; Viera’s extended spring training could be busy this year.

Its frankly impossible to predict the short-season squads, since (especially Auburn) they exist to park newly signed draftees. However, I do see a ton of guys who competed and succeeded in the GCL this year who won’t necessarily make the Hagerstown squad, and I see them forming a good chunk of the Auburn squad. The rest of the Auburn squad will be populated with upper-end 2014 draftees and losers from the Hagerstown pitching staff competition. More of the same with the 2014 GCL squad, which was heavily tilted with DSL graduates this year. The Nats tend to focus on college arms and thus only small college guys are generally put in the GCL in their draft year.

Note: from here on down, there’s more than a few examples of small sample sizes. Plus, I know many readers here were frequent Potomac game attendees and may have different/better opinions than I. Please comment if you disagree with the sentiments here.

Potomac starters. The rotation started the season with Ray, Jordan, Cole, Turnbull and Hill. It ended with Purke, Demny, Mooneyham, Solis and Schwartz. There were quite a few changes along the way; I counted 9 promotions throughout the year. Lets take a look at the High-A starters for 2013, starting with the original five and then counting down by the number of starts. Because there were so many promotions, we’ll be referring to the AA and MLB posts frequently here for more detail.

Robbie Ray got the ball opening day and never looked back: he dominated high-A in the first half of the season (10.71 K/9 in 16 High-A starts) and continued the great work as one of the youngest starters in all of AA by the time the season was over. See the AA-writeup for more. Outlook for next season: in the Detroit organization.

Taylor Jordan gave up just 5 earned runs in his first 6 Potomac starts of the year, quickly earning him a promotion to AA. We all know the story from here; he blew up AA and then gave the MLB team 9 good starts before hitting his post TJ surgery innings limit. See AA’s and the MLB post for more detail. Outlook for next season: AAA rotation.

A. J. Colemade his triumphant return to the Nats organization, escaping his hellish 2012 season in the California League by coming back to Washington as bounty for Michael Morse. Cole threw about 100 innings in High-A across 18 starts and was 6-3 with a 4.25 ERA. His FIP was considerably better and he averaged more than a K/inning, and the team pushed him to AA as a 21 year old. See AA’s post for more. Outlook for next season: AA rotation to start, looking for a mid-season promotion to AAA.

Kylin Turnbull lasted just three high-A starts, giving up 10 runs in 17 innings and was demoted to low-A. See low-A’s post for more. Outlook for next season: Attempting High-A’s rotation again.

Blake Schwartz blitzed through 4 starts in low-A and was quickly promoted to Potomac, where he led the staff in starts, wins and innings. He finished the year with an 11-4 record with a 2.65 ERA in 132 innings. His ERA was a bit masked by a low BABIP, resulting in a FIP that was a point higher. He had a nice 4/1 K/BB ratio, a relatively small WHIP, and a decent enough K/9 rate. Another excellent small college find by the Nats scouting staff. Outlook for next season: You have to think he’s in the AA rotation; what more does he have to prove in high-A?

Sammy Solis made it back from Tommy John and gave Potomac 57 innings over 13 apperances with a decent 3.43 ERA. He did miss some time mid-season but came back pretty strong. He was also the P-Nats’ #1 starter in the playoffs, giving them one great and one not-so-great start in the post season. Solis was added to the 40-man ahead of the Rule-5 draft by virtue of his being eligible; now there’s talk about him possibly featuring as a lefty-matchup guy at the major league level. I can see that eventually, but not from the start of the 2014 season. I can see Solis going to AA to get some reps against better hitters and possibly covering for injuries/need later this year. Outlook for next season: AA rotation for now.

Brian Rauh started the year in Hagerstown’s bullpen as an 8th inning guy, didn’t really pitch that well but was pushed up to Potomac anyway, where he suddenly slotted in as a starter and ended up giving the team 12 starts over 16 appearances with a 4.22 ERA (4.81 FIP) over 64 innings. He made way in the rotation late in the season for Brett Mooneyham and worked out of the pen again for the playoffs. Outlook for next season: High-A bullpen, perhaps a starter. Perhaps a release candidate.

Matt Purke finally looked healthy after years of shoulder issues. He over matched low-A and was pushed to Potomac in early July. In 12 starts he was 5-3 with a 4.43 ERA, 1.39 whip, and 3.58 FIP. He got the ball in the ghird playoff game and pitched decently enough. What concerns me is his lack of dominance of A-ball hitters; he sported just a 6.05 K/9 rate as a starter in High-A this year. This from a former first round pick, a dominant lefty who was undefeated as a freshman in college in a good baseball conference. What are we to make of him at this point? On the bright side, he’s only 22 and still has a couple of option years left, so the Nats have some time to see what they have (unlike, say with Solis, who is 25 and needs to show something like right now). Outlook for next season: High-A starter once again, looking for a quick promotion to AA.

Paul Demny couldn’t make the jump to AA as a starter, and was demoted back to Potomac mid-season. He ended the season in Potomac’s rotation but (likely out of respect for what the Potomac guys accomplished this year) did not participate in the High-A playoffs. In 8 Potomac starts, he was 2-2 with a 3.69 ERA with about a K/inning, which he should have done considering that he’s in his 6th pro season. See the AA post for more. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen.

Brett Mooneyham pitched most of the year in Hagerstown before a late-season bump up to Potomac, where he promptly got shelled. See the low-A post for more. Outlook for next season:High-A rotation.

Other guys who got spot starts here and there:

Ivan Pineyro got 3 starts in High-A before he was flipped for Scott Hairston. See the low-A post for more. (Editor’s note: corrected for the right Hairston thanks to John C comment).

Brian Dupra got a few spot-starts; see the reliever section.

Marcos Frias posted a 7.59 ERA in two starts and a few relief appearances and was released 7/24/13. See the AA post for more.

Rob Gilliam made two forgettable starts in High-A before getting pushed up to AA. See the AA post for more.

Hector Sylvestre got called up from the rookie league to make one spot start. See GCL post for more.

Ross Detwiler and Ross Ohlendorf both made one rehab start for Potomac. See MLB post for more.

Potomac Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps. We’ll organize relievers by looking at closers first, then by innings pitched.

Robert Benincasa earned 17 saves in 25 apperances for Potomac to lead the team in saves. He earned his promotion after starting the season as Hagerstown’s closer. His numbers on the year: 34/9 K/BB in 30 innings, 3.30 ERA, 1.23 whip, 2.80 fip. His performance earned him a placement in the Arizona Fall League, where he posted a 4.00 ERA in 9 innings of work. Outlook for next season:Depending on the numbers, I could see him in the AA bullpen or beginning in High-A with a look for a quick promotion.

Richie Mirowski dominated to the tune of a 1.50 ERA across 48 high-A innings and earned his promotion. See the AA post for more. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen again, looking to force another promotion.

Rob Wort started the season in AA, struggled, missed 5 weeks with an injury, but then settled in as a back-of-the-bullpen guy for Potomac. In 34 innings he posted a 3.71 ERA but more impressively had a 48/29 K/BB ratio. Well, ok, the 29 walks in 34 innings wasn’t that impressive, but the 48 Ks was. Unfortunately for Wort, this is the FOURTH season in a row he’s been in Potomac. He had absolutely fantastic numbers in 2012 but couldn’t back them up. It may be safe to say he’s hit his limit organizationally. Outlook for next season:Another shot at AA bullpen but may end up back in High-A.

Greg Holt put up solid numbers as a middle reliever for Potomac, leading the bullpen in innings while going 9-0 with a 3.71 ERA in 70+ innings. I’m concerned with his 55/33 K/BB ratio in those 70 innings; that just seems like too many walks and not enough K’s. He’s progressed each of his three pro seasons; will he keep moving on up to AA for 2014? Outlook for next season:Possibly in AA’s bullpen, more likely back as high-A middle reliever.

Colin Bates had a really nice season for Potomac this year, posting nearly a 6-1 K/BB ratio while still striking out nearly 7 guys per 9 innings pitched. He posted a 2.61 ERA over 62 innings pitched, his second straight season advancing a level and posting a sub 3.00 ERA in the bullpen. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen.

Brian Dupra earned two promotions on the season to end up in Potomac’s bullpen, where he put up pedestrian numbers (1-7, 4.96 ERA, 1.49 whip). A college senior draftee with very little bonus money investment, Dupra’s usefulness to the organization may be at a limit. Outlook for next season:High-A bullpen competition, possible release.

David Fischer started the year in Hagerstown but was quickly bumped up to Potomac, where he served as a long-man out of the pen. He hit the D/L in mid August and never returned. On the year his numbers were pedestrian; 4.30 ERA in 44 innings. He did maintain a great K/9 rate (10.84). But Fischer’s problem is the same as his fellow low-bonus/college senior draftees currently toiling in A-ball; its move up or ship out. Outlook for next season:High-A bullpen.

Matt Grace threw 28 innings of quality relief and was bumped up to AA. See the AA write-up for more. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen to continue as the lefty matchup guy.

Rafael Martin didn’t make his first appearance until July, and when he got to Potomac he was great; a 1.04 ERA in 26 innings. As well he should; two years ago he was a closer in AA and posted a 1.77 era. What is he doing in A-Ball? The Mexican league free agent signing in 2009 seems like he should be back in AA, where he’s shown he can compete in the past. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen.

Derek Self couldn’t make the leap to High-A, getting demoted to Hagerstown after putting up a 6 ERA in 29 innings. See the low-A post for more. Outlook for next season:trying the high-A bullpen again.

Tyler Herron quickly showed he was too good for High-A and was promoted to Harrisburg after 20 innings. See the AA post for more. Outlook for next season:AAA bullpen.

Christian Meza lasted about 5 weeks in Potomac, putting up a 6.62 ERA and greater than a 2.00 whip before getting demoted back to Hagerstown. See the low-A post for more. Outlook for next season:trying the high-A bullpen again, possible release candidate.

Travis Henke toiled most of the season in Hagerstown and got a late-season promotion. See the low-A post for more. Outlook for next season:high-A bullpen.

Cameron Selik struggled through 10 appearances and 11 innings throughout the course of the season, missing a ton of time as he struggled with injury. He can’t go back to Potomac for the fourth straight season, can he? Outlook for next season:AA bullpen if healthy, otherwise perhaps an unfortunate release candidate.

Other guys who had short stints with Potomac this year:

Ben Hawkins threw 8 innings and was released.

Justin Thomas threw just one inning in Potomac during his tour of the low-minors this year; see the Low-A post for more.

Summary

No less than 18 guys got starts this year for Potomac, in a 142 game season. All five of their opening day starters were moved out (four up, one down) by mid-season, and yet the team still made the playoffs. That’s a great testament to the pitcher development going on in our low minors, and I think it is going to show on the big club very soon. Its not hard to see potential in a whole slew of the starters who passed through Potomac this year.

On the reliever side, there’s a couple of guys here who may make an impact, but there’s also a whole slew of right handed middle relievers who were college senior graduates who may very quickly find themselves pushed out by the later crops of college senior draftees.

Harrisburg starters. The rotation started the season with Broderick, Treinen, Demny, Clay and Karns. It ended with Karns, Cole, Treinen, Hill and Ray. There were quite a few changes along the way. Lets take a look at the AA starters:

Brian Broderickgot the opening day start for Harrisburg but didn’t last very long, giving the team 7 mostly bad starts before hitting the D/L. He got one more rehab start in the GCL and ended the season (I believe) on Potomac’s D/L list. It doesn’t matter; Broderick’s time with the organization is likely done after quite a whirlwind trip; he was a 2010 rule-5 draftee from St. Louis who pitched for our MLB squad for nearly two months before being jettisoned back to the Cardinals. St. Louis eventually waived him and we grabbed him in July 2012. He toiled for AA last year and started there again this year. Outlook for next season:MLFA, with another organization or perhaps out of affiliated baseball.

Blake Treinen, aka one of the “other guys” in the Michael Morse trade, quietly put together a pretty good season for the Senators. In 21 games and 118 innings he had a 3.64 ERA and a nearly an identical 3.67 FIP. He’s not a strike out guy (86 in 118 innings for a 6.5 K/9 rate, and he gave up more base-runners than you’d like to see (1.33 whip), which is odd considering his pedigree as one of the hardest throwers in the Nats farm system. He missed a chunk of time this season with two separate D/L trips but made it back just in time to get hammered as the 4th starter in the playoffs. I projected Treinen as an eventual back-of-the-bullpen arm thanks to his velocity, but for the time being the team should want to see if he can continue to develop as a starter. Outlook for next season:back in AA as a starter, looking to push to AAA mid-season.

Paul Demny got 15 incredibly inconsistent starts for Harrisburg this year before a D/L trip resulted in his losing his rotation spot and then eventually losing his AA spot. He ended the season in Potomac’s rotation but (likely out of respect for what the Potomac guys accomplished this year) did not participate in the High-A playoffs. AA numbers for the year: 5-6, 4.95 ERA but 86 K/s in 83+ innings. Outlook for next season:you have to think that he’s done as a starter, having failed to make the leap to AA for the second year running. I”m predicting he’s in the AA bullpen.

Caleb Clay got 13 AA starts after signing as a MLFA before finishing the year in Syracuse. See the AAA write-up for more. Outlook for next season:in the San Francisco organization.

Nathan Karns followed up his 2012 Nats Minor League Pitcher of the year with a dominant season at AA: 10-6 with a 3.26 ERA and 155 Ks in 132 innings. He was the first minor league reinforcement starter to get the call-up to the majors this year. (here’s my “first look” post at his 5/28/13 debut). In three MLB starts he got hit hard and was eventually returned (after an 11 day layoff) to the AA rotation. He finished the season strong and got one great playoff win, but was hammered in the season-ending championship for a sour end to a great season. Nonetheless, we saw the potential and the organization’s patience has been rewarded. For now Karns remains a starter. Outlook for next season: AAA rotation.

Rob Gilliam ended up being the primary 6th starter/swing-man for Harrisburg this year, covering in the rotation as its original members got promoted, injured or demoted. The “forgotten man” in the big Gio Gonzalez trade, Gilliam gave the Senators 18 starts and 90 innings of 4.40 ERA ball this year. Nothing great but nothing awful; right now I see no reason to think he’s not going to serve in a similar same innings-eating role next year. Outlook for next season: AA swing-man/spot-starter.

Taylor Hill had an exceptional season, stepping up from a guy who was throwing 5.00 ERA ball in low-A at the beginning of 2012 to a guy who was making a name for himself with sub 3.00 ERA pitching in AA by the end of 2013. He earned a promotion out of Potomac with 14 excellent starts and continued the same work in AA. His K/9 isn’t phenomenal (around 5.5 K/9 between both levels) and his FIPs show that his ERA was a bit lucky at both levels (3.38 FIP in high-A, 4.06 in AA) but the guy clearly knows how to pitch. I think he’ll be a key man in the AA rotation next year. Outlook for next season: AA rotation.

Robbie Ray showed why I kept my faith in him despite his 6.56 ERA blow-up in Potomac in 2012. He dominated high-A in the first half of the season (10.71 K/9 in 16 High-A starts) and continued the great work as one of the youngest starters in all of AA by the time the season was over. Final AA numbers: 5-2, 3.72 ERA, 3.42 whip with 60 K’s in 58 innings. As we all know by now, Ray was the feature player in the Doug Fister acquisition and clearly made a huge impression on the Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski. I’m sorry to see him go but I’m happy with the return he brought back. Outlook for next season: in the Detroit organization.

Taylor Jordan passed through AA during his dream 2013 season, going 7-0 with a0.83 ERA in 9 appearances. See Washington write-up for more. Outlook for next season: AAA rotation.

A. J. Cole continued the trend of Potomac pitchers earning promotions, becoming the 5th of 5 starters who began the year in Potomac to matriculate to AA. He did not disappoint, going 4-2 with a 2.18 ERA and greater than a K/inning to solidify his status as one of the top prospects in the organization. The Michael Morse trade that engineered his return is looking better and better for the team. Outlook for next season: AA rotation to start, looking for a mid-season promotion to AAA.

Other guys who got spot starts here and there:

Matt Swynenberg got a few spot-starts heare and there; see the reliever section.

Ryan Tatusko dropped down to give AA a spot start; see AAA post.

Trevor Holder and Tyler Herron each got a spot start but were primarily relievers; see the reliever section.

Harrisburg Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps at the end of the season. We’ll start with the closers and then run down the relievers by innings pitched.

Aaron Barrett was the primary closer for Harrisburg, earning 26 saves, striking out 69 in 50 innings and posting a 2.15 ERA. His FIP was significantly lower (1.87) thanks to an inflated BABIP for the year. Barrett’s performance on the year necessitated his protection on the 40-man roster: he was added in November ahead of the rule-5 draft. His late August injury does not seem to be that threatening; the organization clearly thinks he’s got potential to help and i’m sure he’ll feature at some point in 2014 to cover for bullpen injuries. Outlook for next season:AAA bullpen, likely the closer again.

Tyler Herron is an interesting case: signed out of the independent leagues, he had not appeared in affiliated ball since 2009. He quickly showed he was too good for High-A and stuck around as a back of the bullpen guy in Harrisburg the rest of the season, taking over for Barrett when he hit the D/L in August. Final season stats: 6-2, 5 saves, a 3.11 ERA, and an even better FIP. Even better: 58 K’s in just 46 1/3 innings. He proved to be a very versatile arm for this team. Despite the fact that he was a MLFA signing last off-season, he’s not listed on BA’s MLFA list for this off-season; is he still with the organization? I hope so: I think he can be useful going forward. Outlook for next season:AAA bullpen, if he’s still with the org.

Matt Swynenberg served as a longer reliever out of the bullpen and posted a 3.16 ERA in 74 innings over 36 appearances and 4 starts. He continues his steady progression up the organization but remains off the prospect-radar. He’s been rule-5 eligible two years running now and hasn’t been sniffed. He enters his last year of pre-MLFA possibly topped out in the organization thanks to a numbers game in the AAA bullpen. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen.

Neil Holland was another big arm in the Harrisburg bullpen this year, posting 63 K’s in 50 relief innings to the tune of a 2.84 ERA/2.43 FIP. Holland was a 2010 draftee who was Rule-5 eligible this year, but he slipped through the cracks and the Nats get to keep him off the 40-man roster for one more season. He’s under-sized but has put up great numbers wherever he’s been; it is just a matter of time before he gets his shot. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen to start, with a good likelihood of moving up soon.

Pat McCoy failed to make the jump from AA to AAA and was demoted back to Harrisburg after 7 ineffective AAA appearances. Repeating AA for the third year, he posted a 4.32 ERA in 41 middle relief innings. He exhaused his 6 years in the organization and has already signed elsewhere for 2014. Outlook for next season:in the Detroit organization.

Matt Grace was one of NINE hurlers who earned promotions out of Potomac this year, and could be the next “sneaky good loogy” prospect that the organization develops. He transitioned away from starting after the 2011 season and has seen his numbers improve. In 38 AA innings this year he posted a 3.79 ERA but better looking 2.88 FIP. He has good control but seems hittable; his career BABIP is especially high. As with Holland, Grace passed through his first year of Rule-5 eligibility this year without any interest; he needs to push for a AAA promotion to get onto the MLB radar in 2014. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen to continue as the lefty matchup guy.

Ian Krol exploded onto the scene for the organization, giving up just 2 earned runs in his first 21 appearances for Harrsiburg and getting a surprise call-up in June. See the MLB write-up for more. Outlook for nextseason: in Detroit’s organization

Ryan Perry started the year in the AAA rotation under the National’s grand plan to make him a starter, and the experiment failed. 8 starts later, he boasted a 7.93 ERA. He hit the D/L, then was demoted to Harrisburg. There, he was outrighted off the 40-man roster and returned to the bullpen, where he was mediocre (4.43 ERA). Outlook for next season:he has to show he can get AA hitters out; you have to think he’s starting in the AA bullpen again.

Richie Mirowski continues to impress; he has never posted an ERA above 2.61 at any level he’s appeared. Not bad for a college senior draftee from a no-name college in the 45th round who likely signed for a bonus small enough to fit into the scout’s wallet who brought him his paperwork. He posted a 1.50 ERA across 48 high-A innings and earned his promotion. For Harrisburg he had a 12.63 K/9 rate in 20 innings and posted a 1.12 FIP in a small later-season sample size. Not too shabby. Outlook for next season:AA bullpen again, looking to force another promotion.

Pat Lehman was sent to AA after being a successful AAA guy in 2012 thanks to a numbers game; he promptly posted a 5.49ERA, got hurt and missed most of the season after just 13 appearances. He did appear in 8 rehab games in the rookie league in August but did not make it back out of Florida. Here’s the problem with Lehman; he has nothing to prove in AA; he already earned his stripes in AAA. But is there enough room for him on the AAA roster in 2014? He enters his 6th pro season and will face MLFA next year unless he pushes his way to the 40-man roster. Outlook for next season:AAA bullpen competition, a possible release candidate?

Marcos Frias posted a 6.16 ERA in 19 innings and was dumped back to High-A. There he posted an even worse 7.59 ERA and was released mid-season. Outlook for next season:in another organization or out of baseball.

Trevor Holder was repeating AA and had posted respectable numbers through the first month of the season when he was suddenly released to make room for Taylor Jordan‘s promotion on 5/8/13. I was shocked; we were talking about a 3rd round pick after all. He was immediately picked up by San Diego and possibly proved why the organization knows more than we do; he dropped down to high-A and was lit up in the California league (a 6.39 ERA in 100 innings). Now, its the California league (land of small ball parks and high altitudes) so the numbers are inflated (just look at what happened to A.J. Cole out there in 2012), but the story remains the same; Holder’s high draft pick was viewed at the time as the Nats “punting” on the pick to save money, and Holder never really proved anyone wrong. Outlook for next season:in San Diego’s organization.

Michael Broadway started in Harrisburg and quickly earned a promotion to Syracuse. See the AAA writeup for more. Outlook for next season:in the Toronto organization.

Bill Brayreturned to the organization that drafted him, and returned to his “home” team; he grew up in Virginia Beach, went to William & Mary and in a bit of a personal interest item is cousins with a friend of mine; he was counting on him making the MLB team and reaping the benefits of free tickets for family and friends :-). However he struggled in the spring and was sent to minor league camp. He stuck around Viera to work on his mechanics, finally got to Harrisburg and then, after just four outings, suffered a season-ending shoulder injury. He’s a MLFA again this off-season and it remains to be seen where he picks up. I’d like to see him back here again, but Bray’s representatives have to be looking at the crowded bullpen and may suggest he continue his career elsewhere. That is if he can recover from his latest injury. To say that Bray has “unconventional” mechanics would be an understatement, and it is no shock that he’s struggled with arm issues his whole career. Outlook for next season:MLFA, in another organization.

Other Relievers who appeared in AA of note:

Christian Garcia pitched 4 rehab innings during his rehab tour of the organization. See AAA write-up for more.

Ryan Mattheus pitched 4 innings of rehab over three games recovering from his broken hand. See the MLB write-up for more.

Brian Rauh got a one-game call-up to provide bullpen cover. See the high-A write-up for more.

Rob Wort pitched 3 AA innings before getting demoted to Potomac, where he spent the rest of the year. See the high-A write-up for more.

Jose Lozada is normally a SS; he pitched one inning somewhere along the line in what likely was a blow-out loss.

Summary

Harrisburg got a ton of really good pitching this year, both from the starters and from the relievers. And a ton of it matriculated up over the course of the year from Potomac. Three guys on this squad jumped straight to the majors, and it isn’t hard to see another couple of these guys getting MLB debuts in 2014.